Remove exception to AIPAC political status
Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely
Replicate EO 14046 for Israel which adds the entire ruling party and head of state and spouses and military and affiliated business to the OFAC list
all of this is easy and doesn’t require Congress
but nobody is close to considering those actions with regard to Israel. Notably, other nation’s organizations do not enjoy this courtesy
(Don’t sorry guys, Hamas is already on these lists too)
Now acting mildly concerned when the neighbour downstreet (Qatar) got their chickens bombed.
Thing is, what was bombed there was Hamas leadership, not some rank-and-file goons.
Justifying this kind of act, no matter what, opens the doors for such assassinations to occur in any other country in the world.
The precedence has been set. Don't moan when your own politicians, branded terrorists by the governments of some foreign nation, also get blasted away.
If they thought they could get away with it, they’d be doing it.
They do get away with it.
You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further.
It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide.
Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.
You know nothing about me.
Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets.
Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because.
[0]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
Hell, turn your fresh water off too.
Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years.
Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well.
Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way.
Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby.
When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition.
No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.
The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war.
More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.)
> war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people
One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?
It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
In Gaza, people are just herded from one kill box to another, back and forth.
I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone
and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
To be clear, the estimate doesn’t sound incredulous. I’m just curious to see how they are estimating.
how do you see surgical strikes on this ? and what kind of munition ?
or what is surgical strike when you have hamas team with rpg in the window of the building ?
So which is? Is terrorism a made-up word used by racists? Or is terrorism a legitimate word to designate bad people, and the US is to blame for these bad people existing?
The duplicitous ruling elite of the nation with the world's largest prison slavery population definitely has the means to create lesser classes to fight for them.
It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war.
Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.
In the case of Hamas, they are in fact terrorists. So the analogy fails.
My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
Sure, China or Russia can and will label political opponents "terrorists" to justify persecution against them. Their goal is to destroy the international consensus, so that "terrorist" becomes a purely subjective label. By equating Israel's bombing of an actual terrorist group with Russia's persecution of a fake one, you are supporting Russia in this effort.
Instead, you should equate Israel killing Hamas leaders with the US killing Bin Laden, coalition forces bombing ISIS in Iraq, France bombing islamists in Mali, etc.
Never let a good crisis go to waste they say
Where they can't attack because it is a NATO member.
It was duplicitous move that not only put an end to any good faith negotiations, but also attacke a mediator in a negotiation. The hostages are dead and the Israeli military killed them.
Primaries.
The truth is that foreign policy rarely flips American elections. Particularly when we don't have our troops on the ground.
Part of being in a leadership position is taking responsibility for what happens on your watch. The electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed.
Now do down ballot.
> electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed
Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war. Even if they thought they were just throwing a tantrum. That includes the war’s repercussions, including the dissolution and incorporation of Palestine.
If you care about net effect, the answer is obvious. If how one feels reigns supreme, yes, that voting bloc is excused. (But still irrelevant.)
As I stated before, changing a political party from the bottom up takes time. While a good endeavor, it doesn't affect who is currently in the drivers seat. Either Harris or Trump were going to be making the decisions about the current Gaza situation regardless of what the electorate did.
> Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war.
Pro-palestinian voters didn't swing to trump. Virtually no one swang to Trump; his election results in 2024 were basically the same as in 2020 plus the increase in population of areas that voted for him in 2020. Exit polls indicate that Trump voters were overwhelmingly pro-israel. I'm sure some individuals did, but not enough to make any difference one way or the other. Trump won because 6 million democrats who showed up in 2020 stayed home in 2024. If they had gone out and voted for Harris, and then Harris supported Israel's efforts, as she publicly said she would, you would still be saying they endorsed the war.
And the system is designed to exclude independents. The last nationally visible "I" candidate was roughly H Ross Perot. The system made sure that didn't happen again.
There's a phrase that's widely attributed (arguably misattributed) to Lenin:
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/692948/u.s.-back-israel-militar...
It's easier to talk about these things and seeing consensus shift on consensus driven forums like this. My prior observations about that state's policies and supporting culture have been similar, but seen as extreme and "cancellable" at one point. Espousing my observations would have been conflated with ideas of physical harm to Jewish and Israelis, which I don't harbor. My ideas are much more similar to Jewish Israeli residents that protest their own government within Israel. And it's been nice to see many stateside Jewish people distance themselves, and now even second guess Zionism, which Jewish community leaders initially denounced 120 years ago by foreseeing these specific issues and its inherent extremism.
When it comes to my country's involvement, it's a complete aberration in US foreign policy. The reasons require a contorting ourselves for no real practical reason that isn’t already fulfilled by other countries in the Middle East, it’s just money moved from one account to the account of our politicians and appointed representatives.
So I am happy to see piece by piece, people re-evaluating the state narrative on that country. The politicians with discretion on all the levers are unfortunately a far cry away from changing anything.
> Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely
What would that achieve? AIPAC is a domestic organization. Their members are US citizens and permanent residents, making individual political donations of their own free will.
AIPAC vets candidates for their support of Israel, and individual donors rely on them to make an informed decision. But ultimately it is their decision, and their money.
If AIPAC disappeared tomorrow, their members would still be directing their political donations towards pro-Israel candidates, as is their constitutional right. They would simply look for another nonprofit to do the vetting, or do the research themselves.
On top of being ineffective, attacking AIPAC in this way would also be unethical. You may not like that some US citizens prioritize support for Israel in their donations. That doesn't give you the right to suppress their donations. It creates a dangerous precedent where suppressing the political rights of some citizens is justified if they have the "wrong" opinions.
It's quite simple, treat Israel like Russia. Same tools are available for any nation which commits atrocities under the watchful guise of the mighty, moral, USA.
If it works on Russia, it'll work for Israel.
Also, they are advocating for a foreign nation. Under FARA rules they should be registered as forein agents.
Not only is it not clear, it's nonsensical. To summarize the facts:
- AIPAC is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Their historical role is to vet and recommend candidates; then their members make the actual donations.
- Federal law prohibit foreign nationals from contributing directly
- Candidates are required by law to enforce this
- Donors must provide name, address, occupation and employer if the donation is above $200.
So you're basically claiming that AIPAC members are engaged in a conspiracy to break federal election laws. That is a "flat earth" level of conspiracy theory, so the least you could do is provide arguments to back your claim.
> Also, they are advocating for a foreign nation. Under FARA rules they should be registered as forein agents.
This is false. AIPAC is a US-funded and US-staffed organization, advocating for US foreign policy. It does not receive funding or instructions from Israel. Therefore FARA does not apply to it.
Note that I already explained this in my earlier post... Your blind spot is that you can't fathom that US-based individuals legitimately care about US-Israel friendship, and wish to donate to US candidates accordingly. In your mind, AIPAC cannot possibly reflect the political priorities of regular Americans. The only plausible explanation for its influence is a conspiracy by the evil Jewish state, pulling strings in the shadows...
I'll point out the elephant in the room: Jews pulling strings in the shadows, manipulating a host country's politics for their nefarious aims... Those are the same antisemitic claims used by Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany.
But you’re right - putting the military on the OFAC list will be far more effective as it is practically putting economic sanctions on nearly every person in that country
It will likely impact pro-Israel non-profits as so many persons involved at all angles are also Israeli citizens, many holding US citizenship too, and it will be prohibited to move money to or from sanctioned people
You started from a kernel a historical truth, then distorted it into a false claim...
- Historical truth: In 1962 the DOJ ordered the American Zionist Committee to register as a foreign agent, because it received funding from the Jewish Agency for Israel, which was tied to the Israeli government.
- Historical truth: around the same time, the AIPAC was created with a very different legal structure, as a fully US-staffed and US-funded organization. The DOJ was satisfied with the new structure, and in its 60+ years of existence, AIPAC has never been investigated by the DOJ for FARA disclosure (or as far as know, for anything else).
- Falsehood: "its simply a reincorporation to slide by". You're trying to make it look like AIPAC is structurally the same as the old AZC, making it a foreign agent in all but name. When in fact, the creators of AZC actually followed the law in spirit and letter, and built AIPAC on a completely different legal model, specifically to not be a foreign agent.
Of course, the AIPAC model is only possible because enough US citizens and permanent residents genuinely care about supporting Israel, and are willing to donate accordingly. Which brings us back to the original problem... That fact is hard to admit for people like you, who take it for granted that Israel is evil and manipulative, and a pro-Israel foreign policy can only be the result of manipulation. When reality is much simpler: there are Americans who disagree with you, and support Israel. Many of them are American Jews - which antisemites often accuse of duplicity, and lack of loyalty to their host country.
Speaking of which...
> putting the military on the OFAC list will be far more effective as it is practically putting economic sanctions on nearly every person in that country > It will likely impact pro-Israel non-profits as so many persons involved at all angles are also Israeli citizens, many holding US citizenship too, and it will be prohibited to move money to or from sanctioned people
Thank you for reminding me of the importance of supporting pro-Israel candidates at all levels of US government. They are the last line of defense against the antisemitic fever that you and so many others have succumbed to.
I will go make a few more donations in your honor.
" 251. The Commission’s analysis in this report relates solely to the determination of genocide under the Genocide Convention as it relates to the responsibility of the State of Israel both for the failure to prevent genocide, for committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 and for the failure to punish genocide. The Commission also notes that, while its analysis is limited to the Palestinians specifically in Gaza during the period since 7 October 2023, it nevertheless raises the serious concern that the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and Israeli security forces’ actions therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023. The events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the Commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population from their lands and its replacement.
252. The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
253. On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement. The Commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.
254. On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition, the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.
It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.
More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue. That goes to both ends - previously unthinkable, unwavering support under Republicans but a very short leash under the Democrats.
A highly salient political issue becoming partisan is a good thing in a representative democracy, as that is the only thing that makes it possible for the public to influence it by general election votes.
Every possible alignment of circumstances “backfires” in FPTP because FPTP is a fundamentally bad way to elect a legislature.
That’s not a problem of, e.g., salient political issues becoming partisan—representing a coherent position on salient issues is the only useful thing parties can do—it is a problem of FPTP.
I understand that that's the current shorthand, but it seems inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing to me.
You can be for the existence of a peaceful Israel that has entirely retreated within recognised borders and made amends for its past genocidal behaviour- but it's not what the current Israel is or, sadly, can ever be.
> There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against...
No. Not at all.
Its more of a popular jewish movement that over 100 years changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
Political scheming is secondary and was born well after the 1840s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
Zionism itself is a product of 19th century nationalisms and of course of a (widespread at the time) colonial mindset.
Jewish people coming back to live on its ancient homeland has no legal basis; It's their collective will which allowed its coming into existence (continuous immigration from other countries since the 1840s).
The legality of its existence wouldn't help it survive even one second.
Thanks for answering your own question.
Then what was the purpose of your previous objection about ceasefire lines? None. You just threw it there hoping to derail the argument with a pointless distraction, and now that it didn't work you are saying legality doesn't matter. This fundamental, shameless dishonesty is common to most defenders of Israel and frankly unsufferable.
I personally think the borders should be decided between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The only agreement to date between them has been the 1991 Oslo accords, with A, B and C zones. Further talks about definitive borders stopped with the Second Intifada in 2000.
> changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
German and Bosnian WWII veterans, including a handful of former intelligence, Wehrmacht, and Waffen SS officers, were among the volunteers fighting for the Palestinian cause. Veterans of WWII Axis militaries were represented in the ranks of the ALA forces commanded by Fawzi al-Qawuqji (who had been awarded an officer's rank in the Wehrmacht during WWII) and in the Mufti's forces, commanded by Abd al-Qadir (who had fought with the Germans against the British in Iraq) and Salama (who trained in Germany as a commando during WWII and took part in a failed parachute mission into Palestine).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Arabian_Legion
Husseini is still regarded by many as 'the George Washington' of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored in the way our founding father is.
In February 1943 the first of three divisions was formed of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, who wore fezes decorated with SS runes and were led in their prayers by regimental imams notionally under the supervision of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.(Mohammed Amin al-Husseini from 1921–1937)
For better or worse, Netanyahu represents the Israeli governement, which represents Israel. Similar with Trump and the USA, or Putin and Russia. Sorry for the people who don't agree with them, but that's an internal power struggle, and as an outsider it is normal to abstract that away. For all of us: Your country is doing what it does.
As a Belgian, I spit on my idiotic, nasty governements. Insert tiny violin, whatever Belgium does on the international forum, I'll still be tarred with it. Similarly, we talk about Germany's role in world war 2, even if only about 10% of them were associated with the NSDAP.
Every power struggle is always represented overly simplistic. Sorry for both the jews and Israëli's who don't agree with it, you're probably good people. This time I am lucky to sit at a very comfortable sideline, criticising your country. But the point stands: Israel is correctly described as officially committing a genocide, and hence it can't be described as the good side.
I think you're overthinking this. We're taking about a country committing genocide here. You either support them or you don't.
But at this point, Israel exists. People have been born and died there. Its people's homes. Just as I rail against Israel causing forced displacement of Palestinans - a crime against humanity - I will not call for the same crime to be visited on Israelis.
Both peoples exist, have rights and deserve to exist in peace. Currently, Palestinians are treated as subhumans by the state of Israel and that has to stop, but none of that means that we shouldn't support Israel's right to exist. The alternative is to visit upon them the very same despicable crimes we criticise them for committing.
I'm pretty sure everyone here agrees that Israel can not exist on its own. Even with its nuclear capabilities, it's very small country and vulnerable. What do you think a war with Hamas or Iran would last if they don't receive daily shipments of weapons from allies, mainly the US? It's fully dependent on its Western allies; like any other colony, it will eventually collapse when money finally runs out.
Zionism is the idea of colonial occupation. The internal logic will always end in ethnic cleansing. It did in 1948. It's doing it now. American Manifest Destiny had a similar function, and it also resulted in massive genocide for which we have not atoned.
Zionism is done. A secular democratic state for all people with the right of return guaranteed for displaced Palestinians along with some kind of reeducation / denazification program for the genocidal citizens of the current state of Israel is the only viable solution.
As a Jew, I don't think Arabs should pay for Germany's crimes. I think Germany should pay. They paid a little already. They should pay more, especially now that they are supporting this genocide too.
But we often don't have world powers pay immeasurable or insurmountable amounts due to the game theory that slip-up's between world powers are inevitable, and when they find themselves in a compromising and vulnerable enough position that another nation state can exert enough power on them to "punish" them, those world powers are already decimated enough that the only logical reason for the punishment is retribution/revenge, thereby adding more "hurt" into the world - when that world power's decimation was already its justice.
A lot of people were displaced, forcibly moved to other areas, often to labor camps after WWII. Somehow we are able to accept this new order and live in peace. Arabs started multiple war over it, lost all of them, are still waging war today. The road to peace for them is to lay down arms, surrender and accept the resolution made by the winning side - exactly what we all have done after WWII.
Germany no, but the Arab states should definitely pay for ethnically cleansing the Mizrahi Jews who currently make up a majority of Israeli Jews.
Source: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...
Isn't the very goal of "progress" in progressive to move away from victimhood to self-determined?
Albert Einstein added his name to a famous letter to the NY Times in the late 40's, in which EXACTLY THIS was explained, in plain & uncompromising language, in the very first paragraph. For Israel to exist, it would have to be just like the Nazis. That's LITERALLY what that letter said.
The splitting of a non-existing hair argument that you're trying to do is just to avoid admitting that you've been wrong the entire time, and enough people warned (or boasted) about it from the very beginning that you really don't have an excuse for being this wrong.
Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees to keep them out of harms way, why do they not extend the same helping hand to Palestinians from Gaza? who are, at least according to this UN report, in much worse condition?
My idea is to buy the gaza strip from the residents and they can take their newfound wealth to another arab country and be prosperous happy and peaceful there.
But yeah, the fact that no one is taking them in proves they are all a bunch of anti semites or virtue signallers. They don't care about palestinians, it's just politically convenient to pretend that they do.
It would be far less costly to give each family in Gaza $100k and a plane ticket than to continue this humanitarian disaster.
If you don’t have the capacity to stop it but you do have the capacity to offer them a home shouldn’t you ?
Or is it the moral equivalent to the American “thoughts and prayers “?
It’s similar to the Ukrainian Russian meat grinder. The support is only extended enough for this to continue on forever
Nor is available power and leverage being brought to bear on stopping them. Any honest attempt at helping innocents being traumatized would start there.
Then yes, facilitating voluntary movement after that would help, without also blatantly facilitating those who want to drive them out.
I suppose you could that in theory but only in theory. In practice, the current situation is not very surprising given the overall trajectory since the inception of the country. It's very disturbing to see the memes that are coming out of the social media of the soldiers and even the general population.
Even if the current govt. of the country changes, I wouldn't hold my breath about the new government making reparations or taking any other positive steps.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/25/us-news/andrew-cuomo-joins-hig...
And as for the Right, it's primarily isolationism, but they certainly aren't going to favoring Palestine over Israel anytime. That's already hedged in. At the end of day, it largely goes against of the interests of every actor not aligned with Iran or seeking stability to let Israel fall in favour of Palestine. We do need that hard power when America is retreating from the region.
As long as the Dahiya doctrine persists, it won't be. But that's an Israeli problem - their disproportionate response has been exploited for years. Hamas is fine letting Israel commit as many war crimes as it takes to satisfy their leadership, it very clearly hasn't changed tactics in recent years. The cost to Israeli international credibility seems to be "worth it" in their eyes.
So, if Israel wants peace they first have to stop escalation. But even if Hamas was defeated, we know that wouldn't be the end of things. Next the Druze has to be defended, which would result in a very justified annexation of south Syria and repeat of the same genocidal conditions in Gaza. They would also attempt to unseat power in Yemen, and then embroil America in an unwinnable war against Iran to sustain a true hegemony.
Currently there is war, peace is out of the window. First step is to stop the war, second step is to make both side actually negotiate.
It was attempted by Clinton a while ago but assassinations from mossad and hamas prevented the process to success.
To be honest, politicians have failed us too many times for my sad brain to believe that there will be a good outcome.
Most probably Israel society will keep radicalizing itself, Palestinians will be killed and Gaza bombed/annexed leading to the death of both Palestinian and Israeli civilization. Palestinian will be all dead and Israeli will have become in all manner what they initially sought to destroy, literal nazi.
I’d even bet that death by zyklon is more human that seeing your family and yourself getting slowly hungered to death. And contrary to nazi Germany, no Israeli can pretend to not know what’s going on.
For many people that's amazing.
Israel also has a law that says that the right of self-determination only belongs to its Jewish citizens- it calls itself the Jewish state. I would be entirely for a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone, but that thing cannot be Israel.
But a peace process might give people a few years of peace. And peace is the best starting point we have for further peace.
And you think they should just walk away from the hostages? If Hamas released the hostages the world would soon make Israel quit. But as it stands why in the world should they be expected to give up?
And look at Israel vs Hezbollah--Hezbollah makes little use of human shield tactics, casualties run in the ballpark of 90% combatant. Same force, same type of opponent, what's the difference in Gaza? Hamas makes very heavy use of human shield tactics and worse. We see 30-50% combatants. That implies that the majority of the deaths are because of Hamas.
Why would the military in countries hostile to Israel provide Israel with advice or plans on defeating their enemies?
Ending unconditional US support is the only thing that motivates Israel to seek an end other than by genocide, which is a necessary (but not sufficient, on its own) condition for any desirable outcome.
Military intervention meaning invade a nuclear power?
This sort of mentality will perpetuate conflict and atrocities.
And don't say "go home". The majority are descended from those expelled from Arab lands, there's no home to go to.
Do the Palestinians promise genocide of the Jews in Israel? Yes.
Well, if Syria and Lebanon didn't want to lose territories, maybe they should not have started wars to ethnically cleans Jews from the place?
I mean, when you start a war with your neighbour with the goal of extermination, you don't get to complain when you lose.
In fact, you should be happy that even though you tried to exterminate them, they didn't try to exterminate you when they won.
The whole thing about ethnic cleansing is really turning history on its head. The reason why Israel is hated by its neighbors is because Israel was founded by European settlers who conquered and ethnically cleansed the land.
In May–June 1967, in preparation for conflict, the Israeli government planned to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front, whilst taking into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front. Syrian front 5–8 June
Syria largely stayed out of the conflict for the first four days.
False Egyptian reports of a crushing victory against the Israeli army and forecasts that Egyptian forces would soon be attacking Tel Aviv influenced Syria's decision to enter the war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#Golan_Heights
Two thirds of the area was depopulated and occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities in what is known as Operation Focus. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
Sure, Israel struck Egypt first, but Syria is not Egypt. And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial considering Egypt's naval blockade, expulsion of peacekeepers, deployment of ~100k troops near Israel's border, and Nasser being pretty explicit about his intentions.
> And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial
It's actually highly controversial, given that:
1. Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel (as we now know for certain).
2. The Israeli leadership was extremely confident in its own military dominance over Egypt, and that it would win any war quickly.
3. The Israeli leadership of the time had ambitions of territorial expansion.
Where are you getting this idea from? A leader with no intention of attacking Israel would not have made statements like
"We will not accept any possibility of co-existence with Israel. [...] The war with Israel is in effect since 1948." (Nasser, May 28, 1967)
and then proceeded to amass ~100k troops near the border, or in Nasser's words: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ..."
As far as preemptive strikes go, it really doesn't get any clearer than this.
Not to mention the naval blockade which was in itself an act of war, making the question of who started the war rather moot.
The Israelis had been planning their own attack on Egypt for years. Ben Gurion had aggressive, expansionist foreign policy views, which the crisis with Egypt allowed him to implement.
The Israeli public was afraid of Egypt, but the leadership was extremely confident that Israel had massive military superiority over the Egyptians and would rapidly win any war. That's also what American intelligence thought, and what they told the Israelis.
As for Egyptian public statements about Israel, remember the political context: Israel had been founded 19 years earlier through the mass theft of Palestinian land and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel had carried out terrorist bombings in Cairo in the early 1950s in order to try to politically destabilize the country, and had invaded Egypt in 1956, as part of a conspiracy with Britain and France to take over the Suez Canal. The Egyptians had good reasons to view the Israelis as enemies and loudly complain, but we now know they had no intention of attacking.
Even if Nasser planned to wait and induce Israel to fire the first shot, how would Israel know when Egypt's actions, as well as many of their statements, were perfectly consistent with a military preparing to immanently invade?
Taking this to the extreme, if Russia launched a silo of ICBMs targeting DC, and it turned out that they were all convincing decoys with no payload, would you say the US "initiated the war" for responding with real munitions?
Realistically, pre-emptive strikes don't get any clearer than this. If one objects to this pre-emptive, one would pretty much have reject the notion of pre-emptive strikes categorically. There can be a legal argument that pre-emptive strikes never technically fall under then narrow language of Article 51, but that's more of a strict textualist argument and not a pragmatist one.
> Taking this to the extreme, if Russia launched a silo of ICBMs targeting DC
Your analogy has already gone off the rails, because Israel held massive military superiority over Egypt. The Americans and the Israelis both knew that Israel would rapidly win any war with Egypt.
The military escalation that preceded the 1967 war was triggered by Israel's own attack on Egypt in November 1966. Israel was pursuing an extremely aggressive foreign policy. It took actions that caused a massive increase in tensions, but then claimed those actions gave it the right to launch a preemptive war (though actually, when the war broke out, the Israeli government just chose to lie and claim that Egypt had attacked Israel first).
I don't think that's accurate, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the discussion anyway. The point was just that the instigator of a war isn't necessarily the side that technically fires the first munition.
> Israel's own attack on Egypt in November 1966
What do you mean? There was no Israeli attack on Egypt at that time.
> then claimed those actions gave it the right to launch a preemptive war
Not sure what you mean. Israel's justification was the naval blockade and Egypt's apparent preparations for an invasion, nothing else.
It is accurate. There are many declassified documents from the time that discuss Israeli vs. Arab military capabilities. They come to the conclusion that the Israelis enjoyed massive superiority. Here's one [0]:
“The judgment of the intelligence community is that Israeli ground forces 'can maintain internal security, defend successfully against simultaneous Arab attacks on all fronts, launch limited attacks simultaneously on all fronts, or hold on any three fronts while mounting successfully a major offensive on the fourth.'”
Here's another [1]:
“They would try to destroy the Egyptian airforce first and thus gain ability for a tank strike to take Sinai and the Straits. Secretary McNamara said the Israelis think they can win in 3–4 days; but he thinks it would be longer—7 to 10 days.”
> What do you mean? There was no Israeli attack on Egypt at that time.
I mistyped. Israel attacked Jordan in November 1966.
> Israel's justification was the naval blockade and Egypt's apparent preparations for an invasion, nothing else.
Israel actually cycled through a number of different justifications. Their initial justification was just a pure lie: they claimed that Egypt had attacked first.
0. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19...
1. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19...
If you want a more colloquial version of the US assessment, this is what Lyndon Johnson told the Israelis before the war (paraphrased in the official US diplomatic records):
“The US assessment does not agree with that of the Israelis: our best judgment is that no military attack on Israel is imminent, and, moreover, if Israel is attacked, our judgment is that the Israelis would lick them.”
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19...
The actual durable solution is something like how Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers, or how Russia defeated the insurgency in Chechnya. Which is roughly the same as what Israel is doing in Gaza now. But Israel is playing on hard mode because the international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
I think this is key. The protest must condemn Hamas while supporting innocent people. Protests that support Hamas as some kind of justified resistance just prolongates everything. Hamas doesn't care for its people. It has an ideological system that glorifies death. Death is just a means to an end for them.
This is the problem of viewing things black and white. The whole conflict is varying shades of Grey.
Good job. The feat of not blaming the obvious aggressor is something very few accomplish.
Israel has control over water, electricty, gas, road, "law enforcement", etc. and used it for decades to push palestinians out of their homes. The last violent events are a result of long oppression and netanjahu establishing a theocracy. Only focusing on extremes and make conclusions on such a basis is something dumb people do, dont you agree? Israel is clearly to blame, when you know a little more nuanced history and consider its long time dominant position in that conflict.
> international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas
By ignoring israels obvious long running now openly genocidal master plan, you are doing the same.
In order to be effective, US pressure would have to be aimed at forcing Israel to do one of two things:
1. Withdraw its military from the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza), dismantle all of its illegal settlements there, and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. This is basically asking Israel to give up its dreams of taking over the Palestinian territories and to withdraw to its own borders - a simple ask.
2. Alternatively, Israel gets to keep the Palestinian territories, but it has to grant full, equal citizenship to the Palestinians who live there. That would mean that 50% of the Israeli electorate would be Palestinian, effectively ending the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. The next prime minister could be a Palestinian - who knows?
Israel has held onto the Palestinian territories for nearly 60 years without granting the people who live there (except for Israeli settlers) any rights. It has to either leave the occupied territories or grant everyone who lives under its control equal rights. It's actually quite a simple and reasonable demand.
Right now, because of unconditional US support, Israel has no incentive to do either of the above. Israel's leaders correctly believe that they can have it all: they can keep the land without granting the Palestinians who live there any rights. They operate with complete impunity. The US could end that impunity and impose real costs on Israel for its actions.
Both options laid out above (the 2-state and 1-state solution) are vastly better for the Palestinians than living under permanent Israeli military occupation with no rights, and subjected to continuous violence from the Israelis. It would not be the Palestinians who would block these types of solutions, were they actually on offer.
The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
> The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms? Has that ever happened, in all of recorded history? Say the Israelis don't want to give up East Jerusalem under any circumstances, what then? Would the Palestinian side be justified in "blocking" the resolution of the conflict?
The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
Today, I don't know. I don't think that there is a fair or best solution. They're probably going to just keep fighting until the Palestinian side is hollowed-out and the Israeli side is a Burma-tier pariah state.
Because might doesn't make right. Because there's such a thing as international law. Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
> The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine. They only want the rump: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most big Israeli cities used to be Palestinian cities, until the Israelis conquered and ethnically cleansed them in 1948.
The standard 2-state solution is already a massive concession by the Palestinians. It's not the starting point for more concessions. You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The way out of this is massive international pressure on Israel. Israel is strong as long as it's beating up on almost completely defenseless Palestinians. But Israel is a small country that could be pressured by the US and EU fairly easily. Instead, they back it to the tune of billions of dollars a year and give it diplomatic support.
You seem to be conflating the region of Palestine, which has always included a mix of religions including Jews, with the modern Palestinian national identity.
If we're using "Palestinian" to mean someone from Palestine, why wouldn't we count a family from the First Aliyah as Palestinian? The Second Aliyah? Holocaust refugees?
Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period. Would you say they're not real Palestinians, because they joined too recently? How about Arafat, who doesn't have a "pure" unbroken Levantine lineage (being born in Cairo)?
Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights, perhaps less voting power, than families who have been here for multiple centuries?
> Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period.
Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine. This is radically different than the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which was a mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory.
> Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights
I think you would accept that the following two situations would be very different:
1. People immigrate to the US, settle down, send their kids to school, and eventually become American citizens.
2. A large group of people enter the US with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country - a country in which they want there to be as few Americans as possible. They have their own militias and operate completely outside the control of any government that the people of the United States control. Just to make this scenario more realistic, we can say that the US is currently under the rule of a foreign empire, so that Americans have no say in their own government. The foreign settlers start taking over large parts of the country. Finally, the UN says that the US should be split in two, giving half of it to the foreign settlers. The foreign settlers agree, but Americans think it's unfair and don't agree. War erupts. The foreign settlers, based on superior political organization and funding from abroad, quickly establish massive military dominance over the Americans, and go on to conquer 78% of the United States, expelling 80% of the American population from the territory they control.
Not exactly the same thing.
The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings. But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not. The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
And if we move past the rather old-fashioned idea that more recent immigrants don't count, the more relevant figure is that there was a (slight) Jewish majority within the partition plan borders.
> mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory
Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
> with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country
I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
Actually, we do have a very good idea. The demographics of Palestine were studied at the time (e.g., by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry), and are well understood. Arab population growth in Palestine was almost entirely due to simple births minus deaths, and was similar to population growth in other Arab countries of the time.
> But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not.
Which Jews? There were Jews who were native to Palestine. They made up a few percent of the population of the region. But the overwhelming majority of the people who founded Israel were recent immigrants. The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was from Płońsk, Poland. The first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann was from Belarus. Golda Meir was from Odessa and grew up in Milwaukee. You can go down the list. They're almost all like that. Heck, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was from Budapest, and barely ever set foot in Palestine (only once, I think).
> The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
The reason for the naming collision is simple: the Palestinians are the people who lived in Palestine before the Zionists came in, took over most of it and established Israel.
> Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
No, that happened in the years after the founding of Israel, as a consequence of it. It turns out that kicking out hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes and loudly proclaiming that you're doing so in the name of the Jewish people is a really effective way of stoking antisemitism in Arab countries.
> I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
If you read the scenario I sketched out above and think it's the same as everyday immigration and is okay, I don't know what to tell you. It's like calling the European settlers who drove out Native Americans "immigrants."
Do you have a source for this? I don't think that matches the British census data, unless we postulate that the birth rate somehow skyrocketed.
> There were Jews who were native to Palestine. They made up a few percent of the population of the region
What do you mean by "native"? What's special about the particular time period you're referencing? The Palestinian identity didn't exist then.
> the Palestinians are the people who lived in Palestine before the Zionists came in
There were always Jews in Palestine. Even if we're zooming in on a period where their numbers were small (and I'm not sure why), we shouldn't be saying things that erase these Jews from history.
> as a consequence of it
I think most of us would agree that there's no justification for ethnic cleansing. (I don't condone the cases of that done by Jewish militias in some towns either.)
> and think it's the same as everyday immigration
Not what I said at all. The point is that, in both this analogy and the actual topic of immigration to the Levant, it shouldn't matter how many centuries a family has lived in a region.
It's in the official report of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry, which did actually use demographic data gathered by the British. It's not that births skyrocketed. It's mainly that infant mortality went down. This exact same phenomenon has played out throughout most of the world at some point in the last 200 years, and it typically leads to a population boom (until families adjust and start having fewer children).
> What do you mean by "native"? What's special about the particular time period you're referencing? The Palestinian identity didn't exist then.
We don't have to get into a big theoretical discussion of what "native" means. When the Zionist movement began, there were already people living in Palestine. Most of them had deep roots there, going back many hundreds of years (or more). The Zionist movement was a European movement that aimed to colonize Palestine - to settle it and establish a state for European Jews. This is basically very similar to what happened in North America with European colonists and Native Americans. There are particularities to each case, but the basic dynamic between the existing ("native") population and the group that's coming in to displace them is the same.
The fact that Palestinians didn't have a firm national identity in 1900 isn't a justification for taking their land and expelling them.
> There were always Jews in Palestine.
This is a red herring. The fact that there was a tiny group of Jews living in Palestine does not have much of anything to do with our discussion. We're talking about Zionism, a movement among European Jews to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
> I don't condone the cases of that done by Jewish militias in some towns either.
Without the ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias (and the IDF, after it was officially founded), there would be no Israel. The entire basis for Israel's existence is the creation of a large Jewish majority in a substantial portion of Palestine. That happened through the mass ethnic cleansing campaign in 1947-48.
> Not what I said at all. The point is that, in both this analogy and the actual topic of immigration to the Levant ...
We're not discussing "immigration to the Levant." We're talking about an organized effort to take over a foreign territory, against the will of the people who live there.
This is a complicated analogy. There was no sovereign, so noone to decide on an immigration policy and no arbiter of legality.
Some settler groups purchased land and had good relations with natives. We don't tend to deem those problematic merely because people relocated and didn't look like the other people living there at the time. Many settlements were of course problematic for other reasons.
A closer analogy would be black families legally relocating to safer white neighborhoods, "against the will of the people who live there". If a neighborhood flipped from majority-white to majority-black, and black politicians gained power, would you say the white community gave up something that was rightfully theirs?
> Without the ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias (and the IDF, after it was officially founded), there would be no Israel. The entire basis for Israel's existence is the creation of a large Jewish majority in a substantial portion of Palestine. That happened through the mass ethnic cleansing campaign in 1947-48.
This isn't accurate at all. There was already a Jewish majority in the proposed Jewish state by the time of the partition plan. Hundreds of thousands of additional Holocaust survivors were expected. Ethnic cleansing of Jews from surrounding Arab states also greatly contributed to what became a much stronger Jewish majority.
> against the will of the people who live there
I don't believe a demographic majority has some inherent right to deny access to minorities who wish to legally immigrate.
You're making a big deal of the existence of a "sovereign" - in this case, an imperial overlord that ruled without any democratic accountability, and which implemented policies that were almost universally hated by the local population they ruled over. But because the British Empire supported Jewish settlement of Palestine, you view that as just fine - regardless of what the people who actually lived there thought.
> I don't believe a demographic majority has some inherent right to deny access to minorities who wish to legally immigrate.
That "legality" was established by an undemocratic regime that ruled directly against the will of the overwhelming majority of the population. You're setting up a morality here in which the European imperial powers had a moral right to dictate to their captive colonial populations who would be allowed to live where, and to force them to accept the political / demographic takeover of their lands by a foreign people. And what's more, you think it would be immoral for the colonial population to resist what would effectively be an invasion by a foreign people. Why? Because the imperial overlord said the invasion was legal.
But if you're being morally consistent, you'll have to now say that the Israelis have no moral right to prevent the millions of Palestinians who live scattered across the world from immigrating to Israel. I'm sure you'll quibble that Israeli law doesn't allow that immigration, but that's not a moral objection. If the Palestinians had been allowed to run their own affairs in the 1920s-40s, instead of being ruled over by a foreign power, they would have passed laws preventing Jewish immigration, just as Israel now prevents Palestinian immigration. If you're morally consistent, you'll accept that Israel should allow itself to become a majority-Palestinian country.
An analogy is not an equivalence; one can make meaningful analogies involving aliens or unicorns. You have not provided any actual argument for why the analogy might be flawed.
> you'll have to now say that the Israelis have no moral right to prevent the millions of Palestinians who live scattered across the world from immigrating to Israel
Open borders are probably morally optimal, at least theorists like Joseph Carens would say so. You seem to be holding Israel to a standard of moral sainthood, or expecting me to. No state decides immigration (or any other) policies based on what is morally optimal.
> That "legality" was established by an undemocratic regime
We can just as well pretend that there was no sovereign power, only anarchy. When there's no legal argument for blocking immigration, we're left with only moral arguments, and I don't think a demographic majority has any inherent moral right to deny the freedom of movement of select minorities.
You really want me to explain to you why black families moving into a white-only neighborhood is a ridiculous analogy for Zionist settlers moving in to Palestine with the goal of transforming it into a Jewish state?
I'm surprised that this has to be explained, but here goes.
In your analogy, blacks are an oppressed minority inside the United States who are merely exercising their freedom to live in whatever neighborhood they want. They are not foreign invaders coming in to take over the country, expel the native population and establish an ethnically exclusive state for themselves.
In Palestine, the goal of the Zionists were essentially invaders. They had the goal of transforming it from an Arab country into a country for European Jews, where Jews would have unquestioned supremacy and control over the state. In Palestine, the Zionists were not some oppressed minority. They were much wealthier than the Arabs. They had enormous financial backing from the outside in order to buy up land from absentee landlords, expel the tenant farmers, and establish Jewish settlements. They were backed by the imperial overlord, the British Empire. The Arabs had no power of self-governance. They were ruled over by a foreign power, the British Empire, which imposed a policy on them that meant that a foreign people - European Jews - would take over the country. When the Arabs rose up, they were brutally suppressed by the British army, with the help of Zionist militias.
This is what you're comparing to a few black families moving into a white neighborhood. It's beyond absurd.
When has this stopped any army? And hasn't this very thing happened to Jews in Middle Eastern countries, who were sent packing without any hope of compensation?
> You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The same goes for the Israelis, who swear a religious oath by Jerusalem every year, and time has shown (repeatedly, at that,) that no Israeli leader will be induced to give it up.
At some point, you've got to admit defeat, or else the conflict will simply continue forever, very much to the detriment of all involved, and their children, who are innocent.
The passions obviously run high, but obviously both sides should compromise from the position of the status quo, and it's wishful thinking to suppose that the side that has prevailed in combat will knuckle-under and let the loser decide the terms of the peace. This is quite literally something that has never happened before.
Granted, the Israelis are fighting their war in a way that is deranged and quite dangerous for their own long-term survival. If they were somewhat more chivalrous, their own goals would be far better served; there appears to be a very nasty edge to Israeli democracy.
This is a really unconvincing appeal to authority when we consider the three particular individuals behind the report, as well as broad anti-Israel bias in the UN.
> Appealing to no authority except the evidence here
You haven't mentioned evidence here, only authorities.
Arafat was offered something very close to a two state solution. He walked away without responding. He couldn't accept (he would have been assassinated if he agreed), he couldn't make a counter-offer because there was a risk of it being accepted, leading to the same end.
Look carefully at all the "peace" proposals from the Palestinians. All are non-viable due to details buried in them. Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
The offer made to Arafat was awful for many reasons that are well known, and that I won't go over here (but to give you an exanple, the proposal said that the Palestinians would have no military, and that the Israeli military would have the right to enter Palestine whenever it wanted, meaning that Palestine would not have real sovereignty).
> He walked away without responding.
Actually, he told the Israelis that the offer was a very bitter pill to swallow, and that he would have to show it to the Palestinian national council before he could accept it. Then, the PLO came back a few months later to negotiate further in Taba. The Israelis eventually broke off negotiations, because the ruling party was about to lose the election to a party that opposed the two-state solution.
> Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
It always amazes me how Israelis say the Palestinian right of return is so awful, absurd, outlandish, unacceptable, etc., when the entire founding ideology of the state of Israel is that the Jews have a right of return from 2000 years ago.
Right of return = total Palestinian victory in the next election, which at this point probably means genocide of the Jews.
They hide it because it a known deal-killer.
The only one who pursued 2 state solution is Israel.
> he handed over more areas of west bank to PA
As Netanyahu explains in the video, he only handed over a small piece of territory, in exchange for a letter from the US saying that Israel could define "security zones" in the West Bank that would remain under Israeli control. That allowed Netanyahu to declare everything a security zone, blocking all future withdrawals. Netanyahu boasts in the video that he gave up a tiny piece of land to end the piece process and prevent there from ever being a Palestinian state.
In the years since, Netanyahu has repeatedly boasted that he's the one who prevented the creation of a Palestinian state. The founding charter of his party literally says that everything from the river to the sea should be Israel.
video from 2001. Bibi is not PM for 2 years already, and in 2000 there was camp david which could give palestinians state (they refused it, and started intifada instead). there were more negotiations that palestinians refused.
bibi boasting about something ? sure he does. he wants to appeal to electors. doesn't mean that he sabotaged anything.
and on topic of killing oslo peace process, i'll suggest you this lovely document from just after camp david that describes how palestians worked on implementing it: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm . and in general to review second intifada
He literally says in the video that that loophole enabled him to sabotage the entire peace process. Netanyahu has always opposed any "final settlement of borders." He does not accept the idea of a Palestinian state in any form, in any borders. Refusing to implement the agreed-upon withdrawals was a way of making sure the Oslo peace process would break down.
> video from 2001. Bibi is not PM for 2 years already
In the video, Netanyahu is describing what he did as Prime Minister.
> bibi boasting about something ? sure he does. he wants to appeal to electors. doesn't mean that he sabotaged anything.
"Don't believe your lying eyes and ears." Netanyahu is on video (which he doesn't know) candidly describing how he intentionally derailed the peace process. He's said throughout his career that he opposes a Palestinian state. He campaigned viciously against Rabin for signing Oslo. His party's charter explicitly rejects the 2-state solution. But you want me to believe that despite all that, Netanyahu actually supports the 2-state solution?
By targeting first responders, jornalists, paramedics, and any professionals able to properly rescue wounded, dead and count the causalties, making available numbers a gross underestimate on the true death toll. Just a few days ago we all watched a staircase full of working first responders and jornalists being blown by israeli tank fire.
Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.
I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
The neighbors who signed peace treaties (Egypt, Jordan) seem to be maintaining peace fine.
It's the ones who've refused to normalize relations since 1949 and keep launching rockets over the border at civilians who get hit back.
And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-mom...
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
The most obvious proof of this is the intifiada which followed Oslo
Netanyahu and his ilk didn't like the awkward questions of why the terrorists were negotiating but they weren't. So they started propping up Hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel.
"They" started firing rockets, or Hamas? Hamas who is 30,000 of Gaza's 2.5M? Just when was that last election, again?
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
Are you sure you want to hold voters directly accountable for an election that happened over a decade ago? If yes, then it's a pretty slippery slope to be on, esp if the same standard were to be applied to US voters.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
[3] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolste...
[4] https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian...
When Hamas won elections (both in west bank and gaza) and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
That's not exactly true, no matter which side you support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Isra...
Qatar started sending money to the Gaza Strip on a monthly basis in 2018. $15 million worth of cash-filled suitcases were transported into Gaza by the Qataris via Israeli territory. The payments commenced due to the 2017 decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA), an administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rival to Hamas, to cut government employee salaries in Gaza. At the time, the PA objected to the funds, which Hamas said was intended for both medical and governmental salary payments.
also, you probably weren't around back than, but there was international pressure on Israel to allow those money, because, quoting mainstream press, un, etc "hundreds of thousands of people will be hungry, there will be famine and collapse of all services in gaza that will lead to humanitarian disaster".
so, now, after Israel caved to international pressure to prevent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israel is blamed for propping up hamas.
Last general palestinian elections in which hamas won was in 2006.
attempted coup by PLO was in 2007
you will know it, if you will know history.
> Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
quoting you "Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas".
A few corrections on this topic:
- there was/is no Gaza politics
- Elections were general elections in Palestinian Autonomy
- Both Israel and PA were against elections because they were afraid that Hamas will win but USA forced it because "democracy shall prevail and will resolve everything"
- Hamas won general elections in Palestinian Autonomy in 2006 and assembled government chaired by ismail haniyeh as PM
- USA trained Fatah to coup against legitimate Palestinian government
- Coup succeeded in west bank and failed in gaza in 2007
- During coup, Hamas killed, dragged behind bikes or threw from rooftops those that opposed it
- After coup, Hamas tortured into obedience or killed all opposition
just one example: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestin...
and on topic of how hospitals in gaza used, from same article: " Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital."
How would “dumb” bombs be worse?
Syria killed 10,000s of civilians in just a few weeks using only dumb artillery to shell a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
The American incendiary bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 people in a single night of bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...
And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base. Remember all the rejection of the idea that Hamas HQ was in bunkers under the main hospital? Repeated denials that any such bunkers existed. Israel had a very simple response: we built the bunkers, we know they exist. If hospitals were acting as they should be they would be open territory--the IDF could simply walk in and look around. Yet every time it's been a big fight. And I remember a supposed "hospital" strike where they actually hit a tunnel--got the commander they were after and got secondaries. A bomb that simply explodes underground isn't going to cause secondaries, so clearly they hit a tunnel that supposedly did not exist.
Come on man.
This is a claim made exclusively by an aggresor army that has no credibility whatsoever, given that we've seen them lie through their teeth about double tapping attacks and because they have explicitly stated that their purpose is to destroy Gaza no matter what.
What exactly do you pretend to defend?
I agree with everything you said about Biden being practically better for Palestine, but this is nonsense. Israel would be a completely isolated state without US support. Even North Korea has China. The last completely isolated state in the world was South Africa whose apartheid ended as a result. It's not crazy to think Israelis might realize forcing people who have lived in the same country for generations to be stateless and voteless to preserve a "pure", "Jewish" state is not a worthwhile gamble if it costs them any connection to the outside world.
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/05/12/j...
It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.
If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.
It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up?
If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote.
> The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/support-for-israel-contin...
Like a political partys job is to get votes. An electorates job is to withhold votes to punish poor performance. The entity not doing their job here is the party.
The party is aware of the trade-offs. It goes ahead with its best estimation of what will win. Sometimes they can do everything right and still lose. One such scenario is when people would rather have the greater of two evils rather than be responsible for the lesser.
"We can't adopt [potentially winning strategy] because it might harm [definitely non-winning strategy]" is not a reasonable position. You don't have to adopt any specific alternative plan, but clinging to a non-working plan clearly isn't the right answer.
Want peace over there, make peace not bring problems for Israel. But so long as Iran keeps fanning the fires of war I see no way to accomplish that.
So really the only hope for peace is the elimination of the state of Israel and to return the land to Muslims.
Well Europe was probably going to fell to the far-right anyway...
It does make me despair to have the two parties that together govern our country both be so committed to something so heinous. Can one really be a proud citizen of such a nation?
Not only that, the current president literally promised everything to everyone - just to win! People are too naive (or too innocent) not to notice the lies.
Of course, we haven't adopted the other facet of Athenian democracy which is ostracization by voting.
If I beg you to reconsider on a very serious issue that is in your power to change stance on, and you not only ignore me but laugh in my face, then why exactly do you still get my vote? Why exactly should I reward you for completely ignoring my protests?
Make sure to swap Gaza for your single issue - maybe LGBT rights, or abortion, or gun rights - and then seriously think about how you would deal with it.
The Democratic party has basically decided to lean on “but they’re worse” as a political platform while backsliding on multiple issues. They do this because Democrat voters lap that shit up, chant “vote blue no matter who” like members of a cult, and then cry out in astonishment when the Democrats in Congress and in the gov keep sliding towards the right.
Also, an addendum: before blaming abstainers and third-party voters, it might be good to ponder on why Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency over making any concessions whatsoever on Palestine. At best, it was a grave miscalculation borne out of hubris. At worst, it was an act of self-sabotage to ensure unconditional support for Israel. Pick your poison :)
Say centrist Dems, unless it’s Zohran Mamdani. They have learnt nothing. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/zohran-mamda...
1) threaten the international rules-based order, shattering the expectation of adherence to any number of human rights-centered protocols and representing crisis that can snowball into larger conflicts,
and 2) are often facilitated in part by police actions (civilian detainment, censorship, killings dressed up in lawful rules for the use of force, etc.), which threatens a general spillover of military action into the civilian/domestic status quo.
In other words, tolerance of genocide leads to a general shift towards war and despotism, even for people who aren't in the group targeted for genocide. Tolerance of evil builds the scaffolding for further subjugation.
Sitting out of the process does absolutely nothing, whether its a protest vote, pretending that politics don't affect you, or just giving up completely. The people who get elected in those situations always 100% ignore you.
When people are in office that are at least willing to listen, you then make a lot of noise and put on pressure. You might get ignored mostly, since you are a minority voting block, but you can make incremental gains and even sometimes big wins.
What you’re arguing for is only single-round optimal, but multi-round suboptimal — much like defection in the Prisoners Dilemma is defeated by trust strategies the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Until you show how it’s multi-round optimal, you haven’t addressed their critique.
Right now it looks like you drained the baby with the bathwater.
My bigger question: Why would you make the foreign issues dominate your national issues?
But to answer the first, I’ve heard directly from party strategists that they look for people who vote, but not in a particular race. They can’t identify them directly, but a higher ballot submitted count than (eg) presidential vote count is a signal that they can gain voters in that area — which they follow up by surveying independents, etc to see what policy issues they’re concerned with.
The argument is that by not voting some rounds, you influence their platform in subsequent rounds. If you vote for them regardless, there’s no incentive to optimize their platform to address your concerns.
What you're advocating benefits the greater evil ten times as much over a 20-year timespan. They're absolutely loving you. The more Bidens, the more Harrises, the more Clintons, the better for them.
You know why China is doing so well? Because they still remember how to think in the long term.
I certainly found plenty of folks who were not only okay with the DNC's position but who were actively happy with Harris as the nominee.
Black people are, however, not a monolith. I'm quite aware of the differences between the many different sets of ideas (everything from hoteps to DNC-paid shills to people who genuinely liked the Harris platform to black anarchists/commiunists/ ex-panthers/ etc) and it's highly reductive to try to make the claims you're making here about "what black folks have learned".
As a person who genuinely believes actual leftist (communist and anarchist) politics are legitimate I found plenty of folks who abstained or tried to hold the DNS to change their policy.
But regardless of the "harm reduction strategies" or how legitimate you think having any semblance of political representation, the fact remains:
the democrats lost.
Unless you want to concede that "the party can only be failed, it cannot fail the people", the reality is that the party could have changed its policies and accommodated groups that abstained and perhaps won.
You can claim that the voters are just fools, but at the end of the day very few of us have any power at all over the DNC platform so it's simply bizarre to blame us for their horrible, provable failed choices.
Black citizens make the most progress by strategies built around embarrassing the powers that be. Those powers generally capitulate (as much as they ever were going to) after a period of tantrum-throwing, which is where we are now. Such politicians hate having to vote against the donor class's wishes, but they'll do it to get reelected (or they'll be primaried by candidates who will). Or, they'll lose. Those are the choices, which Kamala Harris unfortunately learned the hard way.
One other thing black folk have known for decades: nobody you can put into the White House or the legislature will be able to stop half the country from thinking of you as a n!gger. You don't vote based on that because Carter and Clinton and especially Obama and Biden have shown us that election-based social progression is a pipedream.
(It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
Where is the study?
This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.
Though I was honestly surprised at how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump. Harris may be pro-Israel, but Trump is anti-almost everything else we stand for.
I'm honestly split between pro-Palestinian Arab-American Trump voters and soybean-farming Trump voters as the stupidest voting blocks of 2024. Not only are you helping put someone in power who is so obviously going to work against your interests. You've also removed yourself from the other party's table where your issue might have gained priority down the road.
This doesn’t work unless you have the numbers to field your own candidate.
Not for these groups. They wouldn’t rank something that benefits their interests because they’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against. That generally doesn’t work in democracies, which require engagement and compromise.
For, or from? this is an important distinction to make.
Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.
And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.
Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.
It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.
And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.
Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?
This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.
I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?
Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.
My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.
And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.
So the Democrats, who presumably wanted peace in the middle east, knew that Trump would be a disaster, and yet they still ignored voters concerns?
Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saar-urges-250-...
250 us legislators had to fly there (probably paid by the taxpayers) a few days ago.
Sadly, looking at the US politics, whichever side you vote, israel wins.
Then you're electorally irrelevant. Particularly if your only civic (in)action is not voting.
If they cast a blank ballot, sure. Otherwise, betting on new turnout is a losing strategy. Particularly if you’re counting on that off cycle or in a primary.
There isn’t. Not across partisan lines.
There is to flip primaries. But those too lazy or stupid to vote don’t affect those.
Fun fact: If people like you would get off their asses on Election Day, Texas would have been a blue state for the last 15 years.
The GOP would be done, and we could meaningfully decide between the Bidens and Bernies of this world.
At that point, the GOP splinters or moves to center (they’re currently pandering to the rightmost 1/3 of the country, and would have to pander to the right 1/2 if you voted), and the “blue” people you dislike become the new “red”.
Then, the candidates that are against things like genocide will have some sort of chance in hell of winning.
Of course, it’s a moot point for this genocide, since the above will take a decade.
Continue to protest by not voting, and you’ll be wishing for the days when Trump was in office.
You could easily fit that delegation into New Hampshire’s House of Representatives of 400 seats.
Meanwhile it’s more than double California’s total state legislature size of 120 seats.
It’s fun!
Imagine 250 representatives all going to a country with a similar population. It'd be mighty strange if 250 representatives from across the US went to Kyrgyzstan. Frankly, I'd find it strange if 250 went next door to Mexico all in the same year and that's a directly neighboring country that's actually relevant to US interests and the US's single biggest trade partner. Israel gets some sort of special treatment and it's really, really weird. It's treated with higher reverence than any state within US borders is.
When was the last time 250 representatives visited any of those countries?
(This is also an account that exclusively posts defending Israel)
I doubt that there are recorded numbers just for politicians, but these are all popular destinations for Americans in general. Now, if there's something else odd about this statistic other than just the number you want to point out, that's a different story.
Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/most-peop...
On a political or legal level for Israel it might have more implications though, that is impossible for them to ignore, but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries...just like Putin.
Lots of people will care, but it isn’t going to move a lot of opinions.
> Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024
Yes, but it says 57% do in 2025, the first positive change in support since 2022. [0]
But neither is that much more than the 50% that already think Israel is committing genocide [1], and the positions are probably significantly correlated, so this probably isn’t swaying many people that aren’t already convinced.
> On a political or legal level it might have more implications though but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries.
Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/05/united-na...
So what is your expert opinion then? What is the risk to the state of Israel itself if ICJ makes a case against them?
Informing people > admonishing them
I learned a very uncomfortable—though valuable—lesson about humans that day.
Remember that 47 minutes of video Israel was screening for reporters but did not release? They've gotten permission from some of the families and have released part of it. You definitely see people being killed on camera.
And the really important part isn't the video itself, but that it's stuff that Hams people chose to post on social media. Something to be cheered, not a horror.
And, no, they didn't get permission from any of the other victims families to publish on that site.
So, the IDF literally has no direct confirmation of rape.
Unfortunately not all nations are equal and many suffers because of that.
To actually solve big world problems it would take massive investments and sacrifice quality of life for many and increase taxes on rich. Obviously no one would agree. It's way beyond clicking "like" and "repost" buttons on social app or adding UTF-8 country flag to your name.
Now from watching the coverage of this war you can't help but come to the conclusion that there's an organised but invisible movement opposing the war. The various humanitarian bodies and news outlets like al jazeera and bbc all quote each other in a self reinforcing loop of anti israel talk. If it's not an organised conspiracy at least it's a very strong convergence of interests giving the impression of one.
Historically the main opposition to Israel comes from the Arabs with the European countries joining in with various levels of enthusiasm mainly for the pragmatic reason that the Arabs have all the oil.
The anti american block is also anti israel because that goes against US interests.
It's not surprising then that the UN would be completely taken over by anti israel groups. It's basic maths.
But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.
I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs. And their motivation without a question is genocidal anti semitism. They are just upset the Germans didn't finish off their job and they are taking everyone else along for the ride.
I'm not saying there can be no legitimate opposition to Israel, but it's my belief, backed up by a certain amount of historical evidence that most of the opposition from official sources has its roots in anti semitism.
That is not true. Political will to introduce sanctions is maxed out. And current US administration has even less interest in doing so than previous.
>>But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs.
Funny enough, no Arab country wants to really help Palestinians, to open borders for refugees. To host palestinians who lost wars with Israel.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Virtually no mention to the far worse horrors Iran is perpetrating elsewhere.
It’s hard to say what Harris would have done, but it’s unlikely she would have greenlit the complete demolition of Gaza so she could build a resort.
Similarly, I doubt she would have forced places like UC Berkeley to send her lists of people critical of Israel (like you), then opened critical investigations against them.
Refusing to vote is the best way to ensure policies you object to the most are expanded.
Congrats on supporting genocide.
>start demanding better from your party or be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Stop building strawmen and explain what I could have done on election day for the couple hours spent on voting that would have been more useful for the Palestinians than voting for Kamala, and explain why.
The best thing you could have done on election day is not vote and encourage everyone you know to not vote. Our system is 100% corrupt and invalid, stop propping it up.
I will vote when there is an anti-Zionist running, until then I will abstain and encourage everyone to do the same. Very curious that going against Israel is beyond the pale for Democrats despite being a wildly popular position.
Yeah cause they get money.
>Our system is 100% corrupt and invalid
Yes
>stop propping it up.
I’m not atlas holding the electoral system on my shoulders here. I think voting is unhelpful, but still worth doing when it’s the system that dominates our politics.
>The best thing you could have done on election day is not vote and encourage everyone you know to not vote.
Why does that help either change the dems or dismantle the electoral system? Most Americans don’t even vote, yet the system continues to exist just fine. If you’re saying discourage dems specifically from voting to send the party a message, again what if I’m helping elect someone worse towards Palestine?
>Biden's policy (which was as bad as Trump, if not worse).
How so? Don’t get me wrong, Biden was a-okay with the genocide, but Trump takes it a level further. There’s no attempt at an appearance of concern or moderacy.
Voting 3rd party sends a message: "be more like this 3rd party if you want my vote".
Not voting also sends a message: "I wont show up and vote, so just ignore me".
Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?
Edit: here's one from a few months ago, which covers the principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815.
Re how we approach political topics (or political overlap) on HN in general: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Re how we deal with Major Ongoing Topics, i.e. topics where there are a ton of articles and submissions over time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re how we approach turning off flags: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re the perception that "HN has been getting more political lately" (spoiler: it hasn't - though it does fluctuate): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
If you or anyone will check out some of those links and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?
Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.
Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.
When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
If the topics and responses pertained to such a discussion, then that would be one thing. However, it seems like that is not what is being discussed in this topic nor comments section.
Personally, one aspect I always enjoyed about this site was how it was often an escape for me from the endless bombardments of political discourse that is constantly being shown/recommend to me on other platforms. I do understand the importance of the nature of these types of discussions, but I agree with you, I am not certain much honest debate is being had here.
In the n number of threads like this, I would be surprised if many leave with any of their opinions changed. All too often do people comment to soothe their own knee-jerk reactions rather than to facilitate understanding or intellectually challenge one another.
That doesn't seem true to me. I'm seeing lots of opinions I don't agree with.
That leaves open the question of which stories to treat as on topic, but the links in my GP comment go into detail about how we handle that.
I'm not saying we always make the correct call about individual stories. There will never be general agreement about that, since every reader has a different set of things they care about. But I hope we can at least make the principles clear, as well as the fact that they haven't changed.
Legal judgements often make it to the front page of HN as they are as independent as we manage as humans. I don't feel having this post slanders Israel. It would be more interesting to understand what part of the UN investigation you disagree with.
They owe us nothing. Except perhaps sticking to their past commitments. You can always ask for a refund of your membership fee as last resort. HN is not a journalistic endeavour.
> I say this since I have never seen a pro-Israel post on this platform
Seems irrelevant as the OP is actually not anti-Isreal.
> but as an Israeli, I want to feel safe on my news platform
Having to see criticism of the actions of the government and military of the nation you live in when they step over ethical lines is not a threat to your safety. It's healthy.
I think that reference to "TV news" is outdated. Media has changed and there isn't even a clear division between what a media org puts on TV vs on the web.
And this sub-topic in particular (genocide ruling) isn't really getting a ton of mainstream news coverage -- many news orgs are deliberately distancing themselves from proper coverage. The story may exist on news sites, but it's not being surfaced.
To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?
If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.
The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.
The October 7th attacks were way worse than Hamas attacks that came before in recent history. The response was way worse than what has happened before in recent history.
And so both sides feel fully justified with their courses of action, because of what the other side did to them. That is the part that is so much not unique.
The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.
Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.
And if you think the UN rapporteur is too biased to do their job correctly, why do you care what the UN does?
No, no more than someone who predicts a market crash every day is proven right the one time they nail it. The quality and objectivity of the analysis matters. Not just the conclusion.
Odd you can't reconcile that both parties can be correct
> she analysed evidence and arrived to the same conclusion as the ruling you qre recognizing today.
Wait, you know people who were killed by Hamas? You can’t even pretend to be impartial.
The point is that, as someone with limited stakes in this war and limited exposure to its history until recently, unbiased sources have been hard to come by. The entire definition of genocide has been politicised. That isn't a criticism of anyone doing it--language is a powerful tool, and it's fair game to try and bend definitions to one's advantage. But all that makes piercing the veil on whether this is the horribleness of war being selectively cited, or a selectively horrible war, tough.
This report cuts through that. The evidence is compelling, albeit less primary than I'd have hoped. The writing is clear and impartial. (Though again, a lot of secondary sourcing.) It doesn't seek to answer who is at fault for what is, essentially, an intractable multigenerational conflict (even before we involve proxies). It just seeks to simply answer a question, and in my opinion, having now skimmed (but not deeply contemplated) it, it does.
The balance of evidence suggests Israel is prosecuting a genocide against the people of Palestine. That creates legitimacy for escalating a regional conflict (one among money, I may add, and nowhere close to the deadliest) into an international peacekeeping operation.
Unfortunately, all of this rests on a system of international law that basically all the great powers of this generation (China, then Russia, and now America and India) have undermined.
> international peacekeeping operation
Or just like those international peacekeepers who filmed Hezbollah breach our border, kill soldiers, abduct others? And then when this was discovered, refused to share the unedited video with Israel?
We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t know! But the point of peacekeepers is the belligerents lose their votes.
> Ooh, can we dismiss all statements from someone who is related to someone who worked for the Israeli government or was in the IDF too?
The phrase "my brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against my neighbor, my neighbor and I against the neighboring state, the neighboring state and I against the world" is a paraphrase of an Arabic phrase the nicely summarises the relevant culture. I'll show you a clearer example of why the PA and Hamas are united in the front against Israel. You are aware that Shii Hezbollah and Iran are currently aligned with Suni Hamas against Israel, yes? Do you know what Hezbollah will do to Hamas if they ever overcome Israel? The current war in Gaza will look like a picnic. Go look at what is happening right now in Syria if you are unfamiliar, or ISIS, or Google for any other Shii-Sunni conflict.
In English you have the expression "united we stand, divided we fall". The Arabic expression that I mentioned pretty much encompasses that "united we stand" part, without the self-interest of "divided we fall".
When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.
One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.
Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.
If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.
Show me the evidence. You can find Arabic speaking influencers eating out in Gaza on social media. You can find security camera images of full supermarkets. The facts on the ground don’t match the narrative.
Far from withholding food, most of the food coming into Gaza now is via the Israel government, which is doing an end run around Hamas to get food to the people. Because Hamas, not the IDF, was shooting up aid trucks and taking all the food, both for their own use and to sell at inflated prices.
Hamas via MENA media companies is pushing the narrative of a famine because controlling the food supply is a primary means of extracting money from the population to further the war. Get Americans and Europeans to donate to starving Gazans, to fill the coffers of Hamas.
> When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished -- then your words indicating this is deliberate, given it could only be deliberate anyway, are interpreted differently, yes.
The water and electricity were cut off to pressure the governing body to return the babies that they kidnapped. Return the Gazans decide the want the services back, they are invited to return the hostages. That has been the stance since day one.
> When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.
> One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.
> Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.
If you doubt it, then tell me why Hezbollah attacked Israel the day after Hamas? Why are the Houthis involved? Why did Iran bomb us?
> If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.
Which means that at least 83% are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of water, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.
This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas.
There's a very large list of actions that can only be targeted against the civilian population, and have aimed-at and realised a genocide.
Sending food wherever, leads to it being captured by Hamas / local militias (for lack of a better word) so you have to distribute where you can protect it.
But of course where you have soldiers is where you'll take fire.
Maybe she cared about your own people, you wouldn't engage in places where humanitarian aid was being distributed
You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills
Does it at least know who it is raping?
The commission has previously found Israel to be guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including extermination, torture, rape, sexual violence and other inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, forcible transfer, persecution based on gender and starvation as a method of warfare.
> You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> Does it at least know who it is raping?
There is nothing "legitimate" about it.
The head of this alleged body is a staunch anti-Israel activist who is not taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Pillay#Israel-Gaza_confli...
"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "
Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable. Indeed, the US would rather sanction individuals at the ICJ than acknowledge any sort of legitimacy—even as our own politicians accuse Russia of engaging in "war crimes". I have no doubt that they are, in fact, I think that the evidence is quite damning. But the double standard is striking, as is the difference between the footage visible on social media and what is acknowledged when you turn on the TV or open the paper.
Between them, the rest have only local influence.
I don't think recognition as a State would really change anything. If at least one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council will veto everything that comes up, the UN won't effectively intervene in the situation. Military intervention in such a case is unlikely, unless at least one permanent member is willing to join an intervention coalition. Looking at conflicts the US has been involved in, it usually lines up around the lines with US maybe with their usual friends vs Locals or Locals and Russia and friends. The only one I found where the pattern was when France started sending arms to Nicaragua while the US was supporting the other side [1]. Unless Russia or China wants to support the Palestinians militarily, or the US decides not to no longer support Israel militarily, there's not much chance of outside intervention here.
Given the outside countries can't effectively intervene, recognizing the state of Palestine at least sends a message, that maybe hopefully influences the US?
30 years ago, conditions for peace and the start of a newly recognized state seemed better, yes. But the situation hasn't resolved itself by being left as-is either.
this is never going to happen. there is just no practical enforcement mechanism. laws and police works within a sovereign country because the state has the monopoly on violence, this is not true on the international stage. no country will go into war to enforce an ICC/ICJ conviction.
Because the vast majority of the Japanese people barely faced any kind of obstacles in the same way Palestinians are facing. Yes, they had food shortages and their wooden homes were bombed constantly to oblivion, and they suffered a couple of nuclear blasts, but that was because their history lessons teach their WW2 as something in which they were the aggressor (with Pearl Harbor, not the invasions of China and Korea). In Palestine's case, it will take much longer to wipe out that resentment. Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
> Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
A luxury belief that's only possible to hold because Israel is militarily dominant to the point that the radical views prevalent in Palestinian culture cannot be acted out. The Israelis know this luxury belief is factually false, that's why they are the way they are.
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2025/gaza-bombing-eq...
> Gaza bombing ‘equivalent to six Hiroshimas’
But of course I'm talking to someone who pretends to believe you can carpet bomb an entire city of 2 million people relentlessly, cut off food and water, and kill fewer than 60,000 civilians.
This makes it very clear that Israel is doing an excellent job of protecting civilians in Gaza, by warning civilians away from the targeted military infrastructure. Unless you want to argue that Hamas (who famously forbids civilians to flee bombings and has been recorded shooting at fleeing civilians) is somehow protecting the civilians in Gaza.
Japan and Germany had it 'easy' because their defeat was so brutal, and their de-radicalization was so thorough.
Israel's real crime was being too lenient after the 6 days war, exposing themselves and radicalized Palestinians to the violence that's lasted to this day.
There was a huge Allied reconstruction effort in Japan (and Germany, and a lot of Europe, and elsewhere). I very much doubt there would be something similar for Palestine. Or Syria. Or, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would be an effort which spent a huge amount of money for zero effect outside the US compound.
If the radicalism is the product of decades of force, how could the further use of force possibly result in the reduction of radicalism?
Since the mid 90s the world has proven to turn their head on the other side or pick good/bad narratives out of mere convenience.
It started with the Yugoslavian wars, it absolutely exploded after 9/11 when US could straight up lie about non existing WMD and drag 10 of their allies to fight Iraq "for reasons". It confirmed itself in a countless number of conflicts nobody cared about in Africa, Middle East, Asia.
From AIPAC themselves: (https://www.aipacpac.org/)
> Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.
> %98 of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general elections.
> $70M contributed through AIPAC to support pro-Israel candidates.
> We helped defeat 24 candidates who would have undermined the US-Israel relationship.
Democracy anybody?
Now imagine Russia had a similar organization, what would the reaction be? Yet when it's Israel, it's somehow fine.
From Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC)
> AIPAC was founded in 1954 by Isaiah L. Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government, partly to counter negative international reactions to Israel's Qibya massacre of Palestinian villagers that year.
Towards that end I offer up unwatch.
Not sure if they died or just lost all their limbs.
Are we sure we are talking about the same child who got blown up? There is quite a few.
Like how Israel treats Palestinians?
https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...
I'd like to see a rebuttal from a government that isn't accused of genocide.
> Agence France-Presse has described UN Watch as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" ... Primarily, UN Watch denounces what it views as anti-Israel sentiment at the UN and UN-sponsored events.
"Calling it antisemitism - it’s a trick we always use." Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Minister
If I want to understand any position I would look for first sources. Say I want to understand why Russian invaded Ukraine, I would seek out Russian sources. When I try to understand the Palestinian position, I seek out Palestinian sources.
The beautiful thing about intellectual honesty and openness is that you don't have to agree with any position. You can expose yourself to things that deeply conflict with your personal values and walk away with a deeper understanding of why you value what you value, and how to refute ideas that you strongly disagree with.
To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge. You're saying that the very reason to dismiss it, to not even bother entertaining its arguments is because it is Israeli and no other reason. Beyond that, you are even arguing that any claims of prejudice can be dismissed outright on the basis of one thing that one Israeli Minster once said [allegedly].
That is the very definition of prejudice.
There are many examples of Israeli sources lying about the state of things, from the baseless claims against UNRWA to the unconscionable excuse of burying medics and the ambulances they were in, to avoid wild dogs eating them.
Israeli sources rarely offer evidence to refute the claims presented in this report, and a cry of antisemitism, as stated, conflates Judeism with Israeli nationality, hence these sources are worthless at best.
We agree it is an Israeli source.
All the unwatch site does is accuse Israel's critics of being antisemites. When you can't respond to the message, attack the messenger. Accuse them of being antisemitic and being funded by Hamas.
The Israelis have taken it to the point of farce!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/stop-antisem...
The american equivalent would be to quote Bernie Sanders saying "America is fascist" and then saying, see? therefore the USA system of government is fascism, even Congress agrees!
Lets see if there is a pattern.
Roger Waters criticizes Israel, Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Tucker Carlson criticizes Israel, Tucker Carlson is an antisemite.
Edward Said criticizes Israel, Edward Said is an antisemite.
Even "legends" get called antisemites! [1]
Hannah Einbinder criticizes Israel, Hannah Einbinder is an antisemite? Hmmm.
According to Jerry Seinfeld, anyone who says "free palestine" is antisemitic.
Any website, or any person, that claims "antisemitism" has lost all credibility for me.
[1] https://moguldom.com/454177/silicon-valley-legend-paul-graha...
Regarding antisemitism, it is unfortunately a two millennium old racist phenomenon, which shows itself in an obsession many persons had with Jews and their "influence on world politics". Behaviors include use of ritual scapegoating, where double standards are applied to the jews and then blame is shifted to them, culminating in ritual violence.
It's hard to delete 2000 years of western culture, so what you are seeing is mostly a rehash of this
This predated Israel by much and can be seen online for example by the unhealthy obsession with this conflict or even paranoid delusions considering Israel ("Israel killed Charlie Kirk cause I saw Nethanyahu respond to the murder" as can be seen in this thread)
In the above mentioned UN human right council you can see it in the fact 40% of decisions are about Israel while countries like Iran chair the committee. Or the fact there is a permanent clause (Article 7) meant to condemn Israel permanently, the only such country that had such a clause
That's why an organization that used death squads to mass-execute civilians in entire towns (as was done by the Einsatzgruppen) gets to blame the side that bombs military targets (exactly the tactic used against nazis) with genocide
Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Do people who have known Roger Waters his entire life think he is an antisemite because of his obsessive criticism of Israel, or because of all the other anti Jewish things he has said and done AND his singular obsession with Israel?
* https://variety.com/2023/music/news/roger-waters-antisemitic...
>In the 2023 documentary The Dark Side of Roger Waters, the >saxophonist Norbert Stachel recounts Waters refusing to eat >vegetarian >dishes in Lebanon, calling them “Jew food”. When >the musician explained >that most of his relatives had been >killed in the Holocaust, the singer did >a crude and offensive >impersonation of a Polish peasant woman, and said, >“Oh, I can >help you feel like you’re meeting your long-lost relatives. I >can introduce you to your dead grandmother.” > >Tellingly, Stachel also claimed to overhear Waters telling a >girlfriend that Judaism was not a race, saying, “They’re >white European men that grow beards and they practise the >religion Judaism, but they’re no different than me; they have >no difference in their background or their history or their >culture or anything.”
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/rogers-waters-anti...
I know less about Said.
He did write the forward to Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. The book is framed as an attack on Jewish fundamentalism.
Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Colombia, writes: “He [Shahak] says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.[b] He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..." I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?”
Edward Said wrote the foreward to the second edition, calling Shahak “one of the most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East.” Said writes that the book is “nothing less than a concise history of classic and modern Judaism, insofar as these are relevant to the understanding of modern Israel.”
At best Said endorses antisemites.
Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a podcaster known for promoting Holocaust revisionism and making historically inaccurate claims about World War II. He labeled Winston Churchill as the "chief villain" of the conflict. They perpetuated downplayed Nazi atrocities.
Sure seems antisemitic.
> Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
They are succeeding.
The solution to rich countries being divided on an the issue of an ongoing genocide is you know, not committing said genocide.
> This sounds to me like you are trying portray poorer countries as lesser worth because they had the guts of calling Israel out.
What does "poorer" have anything to do with it? Is that some tactic to garner sympathy?
So now the entire west, NATO and other US allies should with blinded conviction approve of the genocide?
This seems like you are afraid of isolation and the fallout of the ongoing genocide.
There’s cracks showing and you know when they open Israel will lose its privileged position.
You imagine the future that suits your perspective and act like it's a fait accompli.
In reality, the PLO would have (and had been) quelling Hamas effectively. And then they were sitting at the negotiating table (after a rather ugly period). So Israel was facing awkward questions of "If Arafat is willing to negotiate, why aren't you?", so the Israeli far right locked in on the idea of "surreptitiously fund Hamas against the PLA/PLO".
Your imaginings count for nothing, because they're just your preconceived notion.
There is no "yes, but" when genocide is taking place.
The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba. Every year the outcome of the vote, which has always resulted in a great majority demanding the immediate end of the embargo, has been ignored by the US, resulting in millions of Cubans facing extreme economic consequences since many decades. The last time every country except Israel and US voted for ending the embargo (I might be wrong, maybe a single African state abstained).
In all of this, the only seed of joy I see, was seeing the Cubans a couple of years ago, after decades and decades of seeing their economy strangled by the most powerful country on Earth, roll out their own Covid vaccine just at the same time of those of big Pharma - a vaccine that resulted excellent, effective, and cheap. Hats off for the Cubans. Hope to see some other seed like this also in the Palestinians.
People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want, but there isn't. When it comes to geopolitics, the biggest and most powerful sets the rules and lives by them (or not). The USA has zero motivation to do something the UN wants it to do, if it doesn't itself want to do it. No one is going to hold it to account.
Ultimately - whoever controls the violence can set the rules. For the last 80 years that's been the US. Maybe that is changing, but not quite yet.
The UN isn't an international democratic institution. For the last 20-30 years it's been a powerless theatre. And it didn't have much power before then either. Because ultimately, whoever has the most nukes and the biggest army rules the world.
Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.
Can you blame them? The same countries facilitating this genocide have been telling everyone they uphold principles of human rights and democracy, and a "rules based international order*, and that they oppose genocide. Only now are enough horrors breaking through in such a surreal way that people are forced to notice the contradictions.
It's not been ignored the purpose of the UN is for largely irrelevant countries to petition the world powers to maybe consider doing something. The UN has been so successful because it has no real power over players like the USA.
> The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba.
Ok? I mean the purpose of the UN is for people to suggest stuff to players like the USA not for the USA to actually do what the UN votes for.
The UN serves as a valuable diplomatic forum but let's not pretend that is does have or should have any real power or authority.
I look at European leaders and they don't seem to remember it any better.
I don't see why you think that. That didn't work for Hitler, Göring, and the countless numbers of WW1 veterans in the SA and SS hungry for another try.
About 70 million people were killed in WW2, as of the present day about 1 million have died in the war Russia is waging against Ukraine and about 70k people have died in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The horrors are most certainly real. But WW3 this era is most certainly not, that's thankfully off by an order of magnitude.
We could say that Ukraine is the current Poland.
I am sure i will be flagged despite completely agreeing with the UN here but if any real change is to happen, minds must be changed which mass flagging does nothing to help. It only further entrenches people. But hey, at least it feels good right? Righteous and all that.
For those who disagree with the UN here, id be happy to change your mind. The us should not be involved in any of this.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
I am not one to talk as an Israeli Jew who clearly disagrees with the entire bullshit premise of the article… but either way, the story is only saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming for months
In your opinion, is there a neutral organization in the world that could define whether the legal definition of genocide is being met or not?
Not only that but whenever a thread like this appears, tomhow and I end up spending all day on it, which is by far the worst part of the job. I don't mean to complain—that would be grotesque, given the suffering that's going on—but rather to say how much easier it would be if HN did not discuss this or similar topics at all.
But I don't think that's an option. It wouldn't be consistent with the values or the mandate of this site as I understand them, and it's our duty to try to be as true to those as we can. I want to be able to look back and say we did our best at that, even though the outcomes are this bad. I tried to explain this in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403787, though I don't know how successfully.
The upshot is that there's no good option and no way out. Maybe experiencing that is the best we can do to honor what's happening. It feels congruent with the situation being discussed, albeit in the trivial form that everything on an internet forum takes.
Firstly, have you ever thought about the fact that one, posts like this alienate Israelis from one of the few remaining tech news sources which made them feel safe by excluding politics? (If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, in 2023, I realised that I could no longer read The Verge due to pervasive and horrendous misinformation about Israel on a tech news site)
Secondly, given the havoc that posts like this cause and that it appears to not meet any of the rules for posts on Hacker News (clearly not tech or programming related and quite frankly, no more interesting to any person in tech than any other person), why do you allow this post to still exist?
My conspiratorial mind wonders if it’s done on purpose as a fire drill, but a kind of The Office sitcom fire drill where someone lights an actual fire. (That’s an example of irresponsible behaviour, but I don’t actual think an HN/Israel fire drill is equivalently irresponsible.)
"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."
From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."
There's obviously a lot more going on from a social/religious perspective, but I'm prone to thinking of large-scale shifts and trends in terms of economic incentives.
Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?
https://idsb.tmgrup.com.tr/ly/uploads/images/2024/07/28/thum...
Have you see the strange photos of all US politicians with yamakas near this wall in Israel as if they're pledging allegiance to something?
It's humiliating
Its not just funding and religious indoctrination. The very, very serious question that nobody seems to have the courage to ask, is this: where are Israels nukes?
The answer to that question might provide some insight into why things are so supplicant in certain halls of power ...
They have power by being able to expose western leaders for any number of hypocrisies.
What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.
If you read history and understand that Jews are persecuted and murdered in every country that is not Israel, what are they supposed to do?
Should we blame the Ottoman Empire for not industrializing earlier and losing the technology race to Europe and collapsing? After all, if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t collapsed at the end of WW I, Palestine would likely still be a Muslim territory.
That’s how far back you have to go to find a good starting point to explain how the conflict got to the point it’s at now.
Through a socially viral "no net new tax" promise, once Norquist secured pledges from party leaders, essentially all federal elected Republicans had to pledge as well. They were otherwise threatened with losing endorsement from Norquist and faced being ostracized and primaried. The leaders themselves were then caught in the net and none felt like they could break.
ATR influence has waned in the face of MAGA's more populist fiscal liberalism, but that was pretty much just one guy.
Extend that singular goal to a network with a narrow and aligned interest, and it can be very effectively maintained with intelligent and shifting messaging and reputation management. Consider how people like Loomer and Raichik that have emerged, not through established power brokers, but organically through social media platforms, and the significant influence they possess even in the White House.
https://nordicdefencereview.com/u-s-tops-arms-trade-while-al...
The UN declaration was recognition of reality on the ground. And was, btw, rejected by the Arab parties and doesn't carry the force of international law. Israel declared its independence irregardless of the resolution the following year.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
In any case, go look at the malaria maps and desert areas. Notice how they match up with the areas allocated to Jews. The Jews may have gotten allocated slightly more land, but it was not fertile or desirable land.
Holocaust was not the reason for the plan for a Jewish national home in historic Israel, Arab persecution of Jews in the region was.
> Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
This is a huge leverage.
The current genocide is to blame on the US as much as on Israel.
Why does this one country have such unwavering support? Why is the current president for example not trying to save some money by just not giving it to them?
- Early Soviet support to undermine British Imperialism
- Balfour Declaration from Britain vs. Ottomans
- Nuclear tech from France vs. Nasser and anti-colonialism
- Military/Nuclear from Apartheid South Africa vs. shared pariah status
- Hegemonic power from the US vs. every unaligned country including Cold War, OPEC, Arab Nationalism, Islamism
The more recent metastasising of support into a political-religous-racial belief-system is even more troubling than the apocalyptic machinations of great powers because pure ideology departs from reason itself and is untethered to any care for the consequences.
Because it holds so much power over the government of the United States, and thereby benefits from the power the United States has over the world.
Some of the gist of what he talks about:
Just as there is an 'underworld', there is also a corresponding and related 'overworld'. Essentially organised crime, corporations, and security services cooperating in nefarious ways (often usurping - though not always violently - the power of states).
It's arguable that Israel is particularly interested and involved in this 'overworld'. See the early history of the CIA, FBI, Meyer Lansky and the mob, Epstein, the reach and effectiveness of Mossad relative to other similar organisations, etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I believe that most significant western leaders have probably been compromised in some way by 'overworld' influences. Look at what happens to 'the wrong type of candidate' that gets too close to power. Jeremy Corban was thoroughly and dishonestly scandalised by a campaign instigated and supported by Israeli interests. Why? The complete bandwagon type behaviour of mainstream British press of the left and right in that campaign is very reminiscent of the way recent mainstream media coverage reports on Gaza - it looks coordinated and in unison.
Of course, I'm probably wrong. Just trying to make sense of the madness I see around me.
TLDR; My theory is that Israel has corrupted our media and politicians through a nexus of nefarious actors that Aaron Good refers to as the 'overworld'.
Undeclared and un-identified nukes.
Israel has been an amazing success for Western security.
“Some form of” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, to the point of being dishonest propaganda. E.g., California is counted as one of those states based on AB 2844 of 2016. Which, to be fair, started out [0] as an actual anti-BDS bill (targeting state contracting only, but still an anti-BDS bill.) But the form that actually passed and became law does nothing that actually impacts BDS; it requires that state contractors with contracts of over $100,000 certify under penalty of perjury that (1) they are in compliance with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and that (2) any policy they have against a “sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States of America”, explicitly including but not limited to Israel, is not applied in a way which discriminates in violation of either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
It is not, in any meaningful sense, an anti-BDS law.
[0] Well, “started out” isn’t really true, either, since it was introduced as a technical change the an environmental health law replacing "Department of Health Services” with “Department of Public Health” in one section of law, reflecting a reorganization that had occurred subsequent to the law passing, went through a “gut and amend” switch to become a bill that would add new sampling requirements for drinking water, then went through another “gut and amend” to become an anti-BDS bill focussed on public contracting. But then it went through a number of more regular amendments which stripped out all the anti-BDS parts—both the operative anti-BDS language and the proposed legislative findings and declarations of purpose at the opening, replacing both the operative provisionsn and the findings and declaration portions with anti-discrimination rather than anti-BDS provisions.
From an HNer I'd also expect the understanding that yes, old accounts does give less protections, trivially from an information theory perspective.
I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.
Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.
Your framing that "3 people from Ethiopia/Congo/Sudan/Qatar wrote the report" is both incorrect and deeply racist.
Edit: and to make it clear, the report was authored by the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel" which is made up of the following three members:
- Ms. Navanethem Pillay (South Africa)
- Mr. Miloon Kothari (India)
- Mr. Chris Sidoti (Australia)
You can read more about the commission here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index
I wonder also though, how Israel will react. Is this anything new for them?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-i...
https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-israel-to-get-ready-for-is...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-admits-israel-is-eco...
pick whichever source you respect the most
then what about the rest of Israel?
What's to say Israel's next plans aren't for Greater Israel next? Stealing parts of the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Syria (which they already have done) and Jordan? And then Saudi Arabia and Iraq?
What would be the philosophy here? I've seen holdings from wars being held and released, and Golan Heights
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks the IDF is commiting war crimes in Gaza, let alone a genocide.
There is great skepticism towards international NGOs that make these accusations, especially the U.N., owing to past pro-Palestinian bias.
But having followed a number of conflicts, I don’t see Israel conducting itself in a way that’s uniquely bad.
What makes Gaza different is the opponent: one committed to total war, willing to sacrifice civilians in order to manufacture outrage and turn Western opinion against Israel.
Documented examples include:
- Shooting at civilians who follow evacuation routes
- Sending children with bombs in their backpacks
- Denying civilians access to bomb shelters
- Storing weapons caches and launching rockets from civilian areas
When you regurgitate this, it lacks an explanation on what the limitations would be, what wouldn't be accepted rule of engagement, based on the same rationale.
"it's a densely populated place with civilians everywhere, except we arbitrarily decided that every male over the age of 15 is not a civilian, so we'll bomb and bulldoze the surface level and not find any of the tunnels whatsoever, because the opponent is so different!"
isn't Israel supposed to have the highest concentration of PhD's anywhere? this is cognitively negligent
Also, do Israelis really believe that with the extremely omnipresent intelligence apparatus that Israel enjoys, especially on the technological front, their country was not able to predict the October 7th attacks? Or did Netanyahu, personally on the verge of being convicted criminally, found a route out by starting a long-drawn out campaign where his hawkish approach would bolster his image? This entire affair has had all the stench of Putin's Chechnya escapade.
There is widespread bias against Israel, for the simple reason that Israel does not let press on the ground. Not even conservative, pro-Israel voices were allowed to report with boots on the ground.
And now Israel went a step further, by attacking a sovereign third-party nation that is trying to give a voice to the other un-sovereign side. Granted, they are heavily biased, but they are (were) also Israel's thread to communicate with Hamas leadership - and Israel just bombs their soil? Don't Israelis think on those terms?
- our enemies are Hamas sympathisers
- our enemies are secretly Hamas members OR
- it's antisemitism
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
I think after that I can't imagine the question, "will this impact israel?" makes any sense. They're deliberately perpetrating a genocide. It's real. It's the deliberate and systematic murder of two million people. I dont see the sense in asking: will the murderers care?
If Israel wanted to kill two million, they could've done it already.
It seemingly doesn't matter how accurate Israel tried to be, they call genocide either way.
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
You may want to distance yourself from a defense of israel. This is not what you think it is; within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld. You can kill a large number very quickly if you withhold water.
That's where we are. Israel's actions have becoming increasingly genocidal as they have ratched up the "genocidal escalation ladder" with impunity. They had been afraid that someone would step in, but none have.
There's now no way of reversing at least 20% of the population dying, it's really just a question of whether they can finish them off, at least as a peoples with a need and claim to that land. If they can be whittled down to a small fraction of their original population, they can then be ethnically cleansed.
I'd imagine that has been the plan now for at least a year, or at least, most of this one.
Even according to Hamas only 200 died out of starvation, and that number is disputed as well.
This is all Hamas propaganda that everyone believes.
I appreciate that you're making a prediction. We can check back in a year and see the population levels compared to today.
2. The overwhelming majority of Israelis knows and does not care about Palestinian civilian suffering, they do not even try to hide it.
PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list.
I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.
Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?"
I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned).
Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians?
There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
I think it was the recent double tap missile strike of the hospital workers, journalist and first-responders that did it.
One man cannot fix everything.
Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo),
As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
The genocide itself is simple enough; the thousands of years of conflict leading to the genocide are not. Anyone who believes they can unpick all that history to come to a neat conclusion about who are the 'goodies' and who are the 'baddies' is a fool.
My only interest in this conflict is in keeping it as far away from myself, my kith and my kin as possible.
When anybody has doubts about how fucked up world and humans are, I just direct them into this medium-term conflict, facts are easy enough to find.
What's happening in Gaza is different because now we have cell phones and the Internet, and AI isn't quite good enough yet to fake a genocide.
They definitely knew that Jews were being rounded up and sent to camps for slave labor in horrid and dangerous conditions that would kill many of them.
i think it's worth stating simply and unequivocally that denying or defending a genocide that is the culmination of a century of colonialism and apartheid is Bad
I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.
It has been ranging between -1 to 3, so a mix of votes and downvotes. It is 0 as of the time of this reply.
EDIT: -1 now right after I pressed submit.
This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.
Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.
Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.
https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...
People whose goal is to understand the situation will read it. People whose goal is to slander the Jews, will ignore it.
[1] https://aish.com/unlikely-zionists-the-fascinating-story-of-...
> Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.
same you can ask why Islam conquests would even exist to begin with if everybody was already Muslim. Just that one thing ruins everything eh?
same about Christian crusades etc.
Religions want to expand. Some more than others.
And these guys sing whatever they want about Him, like it or not:
Barclay James Harvest - Hymn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_James_Harvest
The song was very popular in the peak rock music era, and among the youth.
WTF is going on with this site? You sure have people real comfortable to say this kind of shit here.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
But everyone reading this, see how the above post turned the words just slightly from OP they defended and my response, to try and change the discourse/make me defend something different/uncomfortable versus what I originally replied to? Not claiming they did that on purpose, but if they did it would be an example of what Sartre said. Not saying you intentionally misconstrued/misrepresented what I said. Just saying that you happened to do the thing.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Edit: can't post but there is no need to bring Esptein into it at all if it's just about manipulation fears (since the USA has supported Israel long before Epstein). Both of you specifically brought Epstein needlessly into your arguments. I'm done dancing and doing word play like the quote says.
2) Israel is a nuclear power. You think they'll let themselves be exterminated (and that's what their opponents want) without using their bombs?
Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.
On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".
Note though, that Germany's commitment to "never again" got somehow repurposed in exactly letting the thing happen again. Be it because politicians here are not actually educated enough to recognize the thing they should prevent, want to close their eyes to the fact that the once-victim now perpetrator, did it and they did nothing to stop it, they just don't care, the weapon exports are just too good of a business, or whatever. Germany has utterly failed to prevent the thing from happening ever again, and Israel has proven our collective "blind spot". The one entity, that no German politician is allowed to criticize. And still the political climate is such that, most likely, if you criticize Israel in any way, your political career is over and you get branded as an anti-Semite. Oh the irony of it.
While it should actually be a huge headline in every newspaper, that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and is still committing it as we sit here, the newspapers are awfully quiet. It seems like it is not even worth a headline. Man, the truth hurts. Sucks when your reporting has been so biased all along. Hard to make a 165 degree turn now, I guess (I give them 15 degree, for the occasional reporting on the matter at all.).
That's a weird thing to say, I thought it was because they set up governance amid a collapsed empire and defended themselves in a war
Who has convincingly argued that it was against the wishes of the British? It was the British government's stated objectives.[0][1]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
>I was refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.
No one said this. What was claimed was that Jews were elbowing into the area against the wishes of the British without any references. I asked for evidence that it was against the wishes of the British because it was news to me and presented references pointing to the contrary. Neither you or the commenter have presented any evidence yet that it was "against the wishes of the British".
I will quote you again:
>I was refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.
How would you wish me to read this sentence? So you are refuting the notion that British desires had little to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state, so by refuting it you're saying that the British had a lot to do with the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine?
> How would you wish me to read this sentence?
I was refuting the notion that British desires had to do with the fact the Jews eventually created their own state.
Rephrased: The Jews were intent on creating a state, whether the British supported the notion or not.
In any case, in 1923 the British split Mandatory Palestine into two entities. Everything east of the Jordan river they gave to the Hashemite kingdom, who they helped the house of Saud overthrow after the al-Hashimi family ruled Mecca for ten centuries. The areas west of the Jordan river, 1/3 the original size of the territory, retained the name Palestine in English. The Jews were also calling the area Palestine, but the Arabs rejected the name as being the name of foreign invaders. Which makes sense, the root of the word Palestine literally means "invader" in Semitic languages. וכן, אני מדבר עברית. وانا بحكي عربي كمان.
> I asked for evidence that it was against the wishes of the British because it was news to me and presented references pointing to the contrary.
Israel has been playing that victim card for decades. It allowed them to get where they are. Now that card is crumbling, as they did the unthinkable. I hope that one day our German politicians will also realize this. It is becoming quite ridiculous, how Germany behaves in foreign policy in that regard, and many people here are ashamed of their own country and government. This is stuff that makes people vote for extremists, which I can tell you, we have no additional need for right now. To me it is unthinkable to ever elect the ruling parties again, due to how shitty they handled everything. Well, already wouldn't vote for them anyway, because of all the corruption in their ranks.
And you are not addressing point #2 at all. I pointed out that the Jews know that to stay if Israel collapses is to die. You are asking them to die and you are asking that they not use their second strike capability when that happens.
> They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up.
However over the last 5 years my attitude has changed. Israel and the Palestinians (focus esp on Palestinian kids) are two screwed over peoples screwing themselves over from a place of stubbornness, reprisal.
Who's right depends on how far you wanna go back in tit for tat, which is rhetorically arbitrary.
The US stance should be:
- Israel will recognize Palestine as a state and Israel stay the hell out their business. Israel will remove their camps from palestine.
- Palestine gets the control they want/need and with it commeasurate accountability.
Therefore,
- US support is withdrawn until two state done
Palestine needs to:
- provide governance for their citizens without playing footsies with terrorists. It's time for them to put up or shut up.
From a US standpoint and as a US citizen I'm pissed at the idiocy we've done to the middle east. I'm also sick and tired of having entanglements from Israel or oil. We've got to get our act together and focus.
First, borders. Israel's internationally recognized borders encompass all the West Bank and Gaza - the areas of Mandatory Palestine. Gaza and the West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan militarily, but the current borders between those two territories and 1948 Israel are only ceasefire lines, not borders. Despite 19 years of there being no Jews in either territory after being ethnically cleaned by the occupying forces, both territories have literal millennia of history of Jews living in there. And Jews live there today. The Jewish state unilaterally uprooted all Jews living in the Gaza strip in 2005, which is widely regarded as a social mistake and a security mistake, and there is very little chance that this will be done again in the West Bank.
Secondly, education. The people of Gaza and the West Bank were prevented from establishing functions of state by UNRWA. In the West bank, the PA currently rules and does a decent job of providing state services - far below the standards anyone would actually want to live in, but able to be rehabilitated. In Gaza however, Hamas has been providing state services in parallel with UNRWA. However, UNRWA was largely responsible for children's education in both areas. UNRWA's curriculum teaches that Jews are to be genocided from the holy land, and that the entire areas of Mandatory Palestine are to be part of the Palestinian state. They teach that dying to kill Jews is the highest honor that one could achieve in Palestinian society. Many Westerners, and of course Israelis, have a hard time imagining a peaceful Palestinian state established when these are the values of the population. Remember, no matter what the final borders will be, they will be long and hard to defend, and we are wary of a hostile population amassed on those borders.
There is no other reasonable explanation. They have nothing to gain anymore.
This doesn't get talked about enough but yes, this was Kissinger's geopolitical view of the near and middle east which we still largely operate on today. The goal being to use the oppressed state of Palestine as a way to separate America's greatest threat (an ascent multi-national Ba'athist movement) from the rest of the middle east by creating a situation that is impossible for the Ba'athists to ignore.
The only correction I'd make is that Israel isn't particularly important as an end in this strategy, they are just the means to achieve the goal of Palestinian subjugation. There's a reason the US also pours money into Egypt to enforce their border.
Could be that I just missed it, but seems odd.
- BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go
- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/16/israel-committ...
- NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/16/g-s1-89014/israel-gaza-genoci...
US and west are all about some perceived genocide, while inside Israel, half want to surrender to Hamas or whoever because hostages, and the other half had had enough (of almost 80-year war) and just want to be done with it, and the third half wants to study Tora and do nothing, but be fed by the other two halves.
This is ridiculous and very bloody.
Can we please just be rational?
PCRF (children relief fund): https://www.pcrf.net/
Heal Palestine (meals and patients): https://www.healpalestine.org/
PRCS (first responders): https://x.com/PalestineRCS/status/1721839906605998526
The Sameer Project (camps & tents): https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject
---
Afaik, these organizations barely bring in £50m collectively. For context, FIDF, the largest non-governmental American donor to the Israeli military, has gift £1.5bn+ in the past decade (£500m+ in the last 3 years).
Israel cannot continue without the ongoing support of the US.
good luck
I always worry the US will do it again.
No one side has the right to commit genocide against the other. At some point, there will have to be a two state solution.
The current Israeli government is indeed genocidal. Cabinet ministers have referred to the Palestinian people as a whole (not just Hamas) as an enemy and the IDF is carrying out the genocide.
This also means that by proxy the US is funding the military of a genocidal regime.
Just as providing Hamas with weapons is a terrible idea, giving them to Israel in its current state is an equally terrible idea.
The Israeli government doesn't have to. They let settlers take care of that for them without any repercussions.
Genocide means trying to killing the group in whole or in part. Trying to kill the group everywhere isn’t necessary for it to be genocide.
Genocide does not require equal effort in all areas subject to the perpetrators influence; both the required intent and the required actions that define genocide can coincide with taking opportunistic advantage of available political pretexts to try to retain support of, say, a third-party country with a UNSC veto that uses that veto to protect the perpetrator from consequences, but might not do so in the absence of some kind of palatable pretext for a sufficient segment of the third-party state’s population.
Genocide requires particular kinds of evil, it doesn't require stupid.
“Yesterday, armed individuals approached four trucks outside our compound in Gaza City that were getting ready to transport desperately needed Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for malnourished children enduring famine." https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-theft...
This must have been done by the Jews of Gaza. Wait...
Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathematical certainty in the coming months. A significant portion of the population, especially the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses—will perish even if direct hostilities were to cease. This is the direct and inevitable consequence of the "conditions of life" that have been imposed.
Permanent displacement and demographic change: For the remaining population, survival inside a Gaza that has been rendered uninhabitable will become a practical impossibility. The complete lack of housing, clean water, food, healthcare, and economic activity will create immense and unbearable pressure for civilians to flee the land in order to survive. This outcome aligns directly with the legal definitions of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, as identified by human rights organizations. It is also the logical endpoint of a strategy that involves mass evacuation orders followed by the total destruction of the evacuated areas, and it serves as a necessary precondition for post-war plans that require an "emptied out" territory for foreign-led redevelopment.
The military campaign, therefore, should not be viewed merely as a precursor to a post-war settlement. Rather, it is actively creating the physical and demographic preconditions for a specific type of post-war reality—one that precludes the existence of a viable, self-governing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. The destruction is not an unfortunate obstacle to be overcome during reconstruction; it appears to be the first and most critical phase of a reconstruction model that requires a tabula rasa. This connects the seemingly separate phases of "war" and "post-war," revealing them as a continuous process. The objective is not simply to defeat a military opponent, but to physically and demographically re-engineer the Gaza Strip to make it amenable to a future state that serves external interests and permanently prevents Palestinian sovereignty. The evidence strongly suggests that the intended outcome of the current strategy is a Gaza Strip largely, if not entirely, devoid of its Palestinian population.
Some basic observations:
28% of children under five are actively malnourished.
IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza. 100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.
Food distribution is being limited by the IDF and administered violently by US military contractors. https://youtu.be/uKpkZNAFwkc?si=4K3XeQmxbxF23tGO
The economy is completely dismantled.
63% of all buildings (including homes) have being destroyed. https://youtube.com/shorts/GLTurLL6lB0?si=AywZxmGTjhNa6zQv
90% of the population is displaced.
94% of hospitals are destroyed. The only remaining hospital is Nasser. https://youtu.be/mTqSq1xokeM?si=QAczyYx19jCbg3H5
Two weeks ago, journalists were targeted in an attack at Nasser hospital. Journalists are being targeted to scare them away and prevent what’s occurring from being shown to the world. https://youtu.be/xAK1w9r2J54?si=-ZvG-55KBKNZbqt9
Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed?
War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.
> And do you think we defeated the nazis by leaving their food intact?
to the parent comment saying:
> 28% of children under five are actively malnourished.
> IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza. 100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.
Can you clarify what you mean? I don't think you somehow believe genocide is necessary or something like that.
I await the ICJ ruling, as I regard that institution as reasonably impartial.
1. reduces the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory, or 2. continues, as it is currently doing, to increase the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory
Is there a different answer, should this other organization’s opinion affirm or refute genocide?
While there is a place for that kind of comment in certain kinds of conversations, many people come to Hacker News to engage in curious and enlightening conversation instead of emotional echo chambers present elsewhere on the Internet.
By contrast, check out this sub thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45259553#45273473
I upvoted a number of comments there with opposing viewpoints because I appreciated that they made me think about things in a deeper way than I had previously, while avoiding anger or insults.
Comments like your original one, that only expresses your emotions, fall under this category, and are frowned upon. Not the opinion contained in your comment, but the comment itself.
HN users also use the downvote+flag buttons to enforce these guidelines. The downvote button is not an indication of user disagreement here the way it is on other sites.
AIMS and Team Jorge at work, again, they never miss an opportunity to ragebait the internet.
Stay safe.
"This rebuttal examines the central defects of the UN report (the “Report”) issued by the Commission of Inquiry (the “Commission”). It shows why the evidence presented cannot sustain a finding of genocide under international law. A summary of its main deficiencies are as follows:
1. Failure to prove dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group is the central and extremely high bar in any genocide case. The Commission’s claim of genocidal intent fails on this threshold alone, relying on tortured parsing of statements, selective quotations, and conjecture rather than unambiguous evidence.
2. Erasure of Hamas as a belligerent: The report never acknowledges that the IDF is engaged in combat with an estimated 30,000-strong Hamas force in Gaza as well as thousands of fighters from other militant groups. A reader would come away believing the war has the IDF deployed against only women and children, with Hamas erased from the narrative. The Commission makes no attempt to analyze the war itself, because in its alternative version of reality, there is none.
3. Silence on Hamas’s military infrastructure: There is no mention of Hamas’s 17-year military buildup in Gaza, including its vast tunnel network, booby-trapped buildings, and massive arms buildup. By ignoring this reality, the report strips the conflict of its military context and recasts lawful military targets as evidence of genocide.
4. Erasure of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure: The Commission ignores Hamas’s openly acknowledged human shield strategy,[2] including its use of mosques, schools, residential buildings, and hospitals to conceal tunnels and weapons. Instead, damage to these sites is consistently portrayed as deliberate targeting of civilians by Israel.
5. No recognition of the hostage crisis: The report omits the fact that Hamas took Israeli hostages and continues to hold them, starve them,[3] and rape them.[4] This omission is consistent with the broader erasure of Hamas as an active actor in Gaza, removing essential context from the Commission’s narrative.
6. Reliance on Hamas-supplied fatality data: Despite Hamas’s long record of exaggerating civilian deaths and its status as a US and EU-designated terrorist organization, its figures are treated as fact while IDF data on combatants killed is ignored.
7. Civilian deaths distorted as evidence of genocide: The report presents civilian casualties as prima facie proof of genocidal intent rather than as tragic and unavoidable consequences of urban warfare, exacerbated by Hamas’s human shield strategy. The Report cites numerous incidents where civilians were killed as intentional and targeted acts by Israel without evidence.
8. Normal wartime consequences treated as crimes: Regular and expected wartime impacts on civilians, such as mental health impacts, difficulty accessing medical care and displacement, are depicted as evidence of genocide rather than inevitable outcomes of urban conflict.
9. Urban devastation portrayed as extermination: Large-scale damage is cited as proof of genocide, ignoring that urban combat inherently produces extensive destruction, particularly when military forces are embedded within civilian areas.
The Commission also ignores the obvious: the suffering of Gazans could be significantly reduced or even ended if Hamas released all hostages and relinquished control of Gaza. The idea that the population experiencing the claimed genocide has the power to stop it but refuses to is unprecedented in the history of actual genocides and exposes a deliberate blind spot in the Report. This omission mirrors the Commission’s broader erasure of Hamas as an active party in the conflict, a group with agency and responsibility, leaving readers with the false impression that all suffering in Gaza is solely Israel’s responsibility."
https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill...
This one is sufficient for me. And I think classifying it as genocide is a big mistake if your goal is protecting the civilians in Gaza. An easily proven wrong accusation overshadows the fact Israel could have taken things more slowly an carefully. Which I think (with little experience or knowledge) they could since the power difference is huge between the sides.
If a policy of de-escalation can be honored, you can lay the groundwork for a medium/long term solution that respects all sovereign parties.
> So that is the state, that thinks, that the land is god given theirs, right?
But I'll tell you who does think that certain land can only belong to people of a specific race. People who call the holy land "Palestinian land". The invention of that term was, as are many of the anti-Jewish arguments, an inversion of the Jewish use of "God -given land". And just as you reject the idea when it is used by Jews, so would a logical person reject the idea when used by our enemies.
But that is a side issue, since Israel is the one taking territory away, that is not theirs to take. It is not theirs, due to people living in that land and having lived there for many generations. Then armed settler gangs supported by the IDF violently hunt Palestinians out of their homes and plundering them. That's not all of it, there are even cases of murder without prosecution.
So the point is the perpetrator, whether it is one side or the other, needs to stop, be put back into their internationally recognized borders, and we need to do what we can to make the perpetrator stay there.
> Too bad the religious fanatics don't use their religion to do good and be social and friendly instead.
> since Israel is the one taking territory away, that is not theirs to take
Now there are nuances of land belonging to the state, and occupation, and annexation, and personal property rights, and the relationship between different bodies ruling and maintaining (or not maintaining) areas A, B, and C. But Israel is not stealing land. If there are specific incidences that you would like to discuss, then please mention them. This is my hobby, I might have an answer ))
> armed settler gangs supported by the IDF violently hunt Palestinians out of their homes and plundering them.
> That's not all of it, there are even cases of murder without prosecution.
> be put back into their internationally recognized borders
If they exist, then please show me those millions protesting. That would improve my image of the Israeli civilian population from "most don't care because it is not them suffering" to "there definitely is a sizable portion who does care and wants to be heard and seen".
- They are suffering severely. - They are suffering due to the education of UNRWA, teaching them that the murder of Jews is the highest honour.
Of course we feel pity for them. But pity is not actionable - and we want our hostages back.
(1) Stop of all armed offensives.
(2) Complete dismantling of genocidal and corrupt government. Netanyahu and his gang in front of international courts, and then afterwards additionally in front of an Israeli court.
(3) Partial disarming of Israel, to restore a balance in the region, and keeping them from attacking more countries. Defensive weapons they may all keep, maybe even get more, but it really needs to be defensive stuff, for example to intercept missiles/rockets. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is needed more in Ukraine right now, which should take priority over Israeli needs.
(4) Organization of elections. Israel needs to get back from authoritarianism to functioning democracy. This might be done with international help. Possibly reforms, that strengthen courts, so that a second Netanyahu is unlikely to happen again.
(5) Long running rebuilding projects in at least Gaza, if not more countries, financed by Israel.
(6) Probably some international peacekeeping will be needed. This should not only include personnel from western countries. Must be from countries not directly involved and not from the US, or some EU countries, that supplied weapons used for the genocide.
(7) Negotiations are on again, this time with a new government, and mostly about how Israel thinks to aim for a peaceful future, in which it gives back illegally annexed territories, including, of course, illegal settlements in the west bank. This also includes all the illegally taken or occupied territory since founding, back to internationally recognized borders.
That's mostly the Israeli side of things. Of course Hamas will also have to make concessions. For example there could also be disarming of Hamas, where this is the price to pay for release of prisoners and a portion of the illegally occupied territories by Israel. Hamas shouldn't be helpless, but also shouldn't be able to launch new significant offensives.
There are many things, that can be done, and they are not difficult to see. They are difficult to execute in the current climate, where the powerful country has an authoritarian leadership, that is unwilling to compromise.
What does de-escalation look like in Gaza? Allowing Hamas to regroup and re-arm, so they can repeat October 7 as they publicly promised to do?
There was an alliance in 2020 between Israel and UAE United Arab Emirates. No need to say that it’s not the most promising alliance anymore.
Other countries that were neutral on Israel see their arabian population utterly hate Israel so they have to adapt and behave consequently.
They manage to unite the whole Arab front against them when they should have played on their division.
This is really a bad plan on long term. Despite what trump is saying, Iran nuclear weapon is very close. They failed on that matter too although there was a real opportunity with the agreement during Obama.
I don’t see a bright future for Israel in these conditions, all the weapons in the world can’t defeat hate from 450 millions Arabians.
Beside, people don’t want Israel military to fail, they want it to stop killing 80% civilians and 50% women and children. That’s completely different.
> The U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking
https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...
Experts aren’t taking it seriously, but then again the UN has not been a serious organisation for as long as I can remember. Some serious scrutiny needs to be made of that organisation.
Genocide is a very particular crime, I’m not sure what the obsession with it is. It’s evident that there are examples of war crimes.
https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...
The Free Beacon piece feels like it’s arguing against a caricature of the UN report rather than the report itself. The Commission wasn’t trying to do a military balance sheet of Hamas vs. Israel. It was a legal analysis under the Genocide Convention. That means it asked: do Israel’s actions and official statements check the boxes for genocidal acts and intent?
And on that front, the report isn’t just “repeating Hamas numbers.” It leans thoroughly on interviews, satellite imagery, verified video, medical testimony, etc. The ICJ already said there’s a plausible genocide case and ordered Israel to let in more aid months ago. Fast forward: famine is now confirmed in northern Gaza, which really undercuts claims of “unprecedented humanitarian relief.” The UN verdict is a very detailed legal case that can’t just be waved away with “what about Hamas tunnels.” Your "excellent" article doesn't budge the needle at all on this.
I very rarely expose myself to international news. When I do, it's strikingly obvious that Americans have a president who treats every other country as if they are children to be disciplined (cue Trump "I'm disappointed in Putin/Israel/Canada..."), and Israel is the favorite child who can disobey the father and bully whoever he wants without consequence.
1: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/27890-israel-attacks-...
At this point - except for this one message in this one thread on this one website - I have stopped all interaction with this topic online. I feel helpless, powerless and hope that this phase of human/news/information/power interaction is well past all of us within my lifetime.
This is a step forward, but what's the way forward?
This investigation raises concerns that are already voiced by some Israeli groups, but it fails to capture the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, did you know that about 20% of Israel's population are Palestinians, with many living in huge houses, built on their ancestral land, and drive fancy cars that I could never even afford as an Israeli with an average income. (BTW I'm not Jewish but it doesn't really matter for my point.) At the same time their impoverished brothers in Gaza employ warfare methods which were/are also used by ISIS, Taliban, Syria and Iraq. Methods that exploit standard war 'etiquette'. Seemingly, International Court and the UN fail to address such manipulations, which are disregarded by most, to the point its just frustrating to witness.
Gaza has become a nest of extremism. Palestinians are far more united by hate to Israel and desire to revenge rather than nationalism. Its nothing new. Always been and most likely will stay this way. I know that the 2 state solution is the most proposed idea by foreigners for a 'middle east utopia', but this devastating pathos cannot be the foundation for a Palestinian country in a 2 state solution.
I do not know what exactly is the solution. I am most certainly sure it does not include genocide of Palestinians. But what I do know is that they must turn back on extremism, hate and terrorism in order for us to progress towards real peace, healing, and a solution that will grant both people cooperation, trade, prosperity. Judea/Samaria and Gazan Palestinians must learn from their Israeli relatives, to understand that hate, revenge and terror will only lead to more suffering. I think most of Israelis understand it this way. I also think most Israelis are frustrated because of Palestinian ideology and pathos do not shift, but actually escalate with time.
A curious person asked me: 'if they would not yield, can't you guys yield in order for this perpetual escalation to end?' I told him this is a nice idea but meanwhile Israel showed compromises for the Palestinian cause and it backfired each time, with Palestinians exploiting diplomatic attempts in order to incite hate, revenge and devastation: Gaza Disengagement (2005) - Unilateral withdrawal of all settlers and military from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 settlements. - Hamas claimed credit for "forcing Israel out", which boosted its popularity. - Within a year, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections (2006). - After the 2007 Hamas–Fatah split, Hamas took full control of Gaza, and rocket fire into southern Israel intensified.
Oslo Accords (1993–1995) - Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people; withdrew from parts of the West Bank and Gaza; allowed the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). What actually happened: Israel transferred control of cities like Jericho, Gaza, Ramallah to the PA. But the PA failed to prevent militant groups (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) from launching suicide bombings inside Israel during the 1990s.
Hebron Protocol (1997) - Israel Withdrew from 80% of Hebron, leaving only a small enclave under Israeli military presence. But violence persisted, with shootings and clashes continuing. Hebron became a flashpoint, requiring heavy ongoing Israeli military presence despite partial withdrawal.
Palestinians would argue the “backfire” narrative ignores that these concessions were partial, fragmented, and often unilateral. But actually what it is - a lack of ability to impose sovereignty and excess of corruption in the case of PA. Greed for power and will to exploit any 'gesture of good will' in the case of Hamas. This is not diplomacy. This is not the foundation for the 2 state solution I wish to see someday. They must change in order for it to happen. Death and bloodshed on both sides will only continue if we head this way.
I am curious to hear your take and vision regarding the 2 state solution, and how do you think we can get there?
Shalom, everyone. My name is Luis Guillermo Mora Jr., and I stand here today not as a politician or a performer, but as someone who’s been profoundly shaped by the Jewish people and the unbreakable spirit of Israel. I’m a trans person who’s learned to navigate a world that often feels hostile, and I’ve got no love for the federal government’s overreach. But what I do have is unwavering respect for Israel a nation that’s more than a country. It’s a living testament to resilience, a fortress built on generations of struggle, innovation, and an unyielding will to survive.
To me, Israel isn’t just America’s ally. it’s a partner in something deeper. Our shared values, rooted in freedom, faith, and the drive to protect what matters most, are the bedrock of why this alliance works. Those Judeo-Christian principles? They’re the engine of our way of life, the reason we can stand for something bigger than ourselves. If I ever heard Israel was drifting toward alliances that compromise those values—like cozying up to China—it’d break my heart. Because losing that bond wouldn’t just be a geopolitical loss; it’d be a loss for humanity itself.
I look at Israel and see the ultimate survivors people who don’t just endure but thrive, who protect a legacy that’s vital to the world. You, as Israeli Americans, carry that legacy here, bridging two nations I love deeply. I’m not here to make promises I can’t keep or to tell you what you already know. I’m here to say I see you, I honor you, and I’ll always stand with you. God bless Israel, God bless America, and God bless the unbreakable bond between us.
Thank you.
Instagram.com/ninainnu
jenders•4mo ago
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omnicognate•4mo ago
An argument could be made that it is an "interesting new phenomenon", but the post is most likely to result in tedious flamewars regardless and so should probably be killed.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Theodores•4mo ago
Those tower blocks in Gaza that were felled on the anniversary of 9/11 were not taken down with machetes. We have got AI assisted targeting going on, with all of your favourite cloud service providers delivering value to their shareholders thanks to sales to the IDF.
The corporation that once had 'don't be evil' as their mission statement are suckling on the IDF teat along with Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.
cnlevy•4mo ago
buyucu•4mo ago
speakfreely•4mo ago
lyu07282•4mo ago