[HN Gopher] IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near ...
___________________________________________________________________
IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food
distribution sites
Author : ahmetcadirci25
Score : 976 points
Date : 2025-06-28 07:36 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.haaretz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.haaretz.com)
| lucubratory wrote:
| This isn't ambiguous. This is really clear evidence of (at
| minimum) an atrocious and continuing war crime with full
| intentionality. Realistically, it is more likely explicitly
| genocidal in intent.
| andrepd wrote:
| The UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories has
| concluded in a pretty comprehensive report that there is a
| genocide occurring in Gaza.
| https://reliefweb.int/attachments/f78b0a28-c3af-44ed-a010-9b...
| throawayonthe wrote:
| https://archive.is/8RsGz
| kome wrote:
| The news from Palestine are atrocious; a genocide is unfolding
| before our eyes, and world leaders are doing nothing to stop it.
| derelicta wrote:
| That's normal; a lot of them directly or indirectly profit from
| it.
| chgs wrote:
| Like with most genocides in history.
|
| The vast majority barely make the global news.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
| thrance wrote:
| A lot of world leaders are helping _speed it up_.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| The biggest problem with this isn't the horror of the actual war
| crime. The far more serious concern are the lengths the
| government will go to avoid holding anyone accountable. That is
| so much worse because it unintentionally endorses future crimes
| and challenges the offenders to take ever more offensive actions
| without fear of consequences.
| lucubratory wrote:
| I do not believe it is unintentional.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Until corrective actions with criminal penalties occur
| incidents like these almost certainly continue with possible
| increases of frequency and severity. More importantly though
| when this becomes a matter of conduct and military discipline
| is that it will spread to other areas even outside Gaza.
|
| This isn't just a matter of vague speculation as there are
| historical cases outside of Israel on which to see how things
| like this develop and what the consequences are both for the
| victims and the soldiers. These historical accounts also
| indicate soldiers committing these sorts of actions become
| victims themselves with catastrophic mental health disorders.
| throw9032093 wrote:
| The idea Israeli government would hold anyone accountable
| is a laughable.
|
| Israel got in trouble with ICJ court, because of quotes
| from top government officials. Government of Israel was
| very specific what they will do to Gaza! This was even full
| scale bombing started!
|
| Trying to reinterpret this as a problem of "military
| discipline", and "soldiers are victim as well" is just
| another level of cynicism!
| edanm wrote:
| > The idea Israeli government would hold anyone
| accountable is a laughable.
|
| It's happened, many times. Usually this doesn't make
| front-page news, but soldiers that break the law are
| sometimes held accountable. Not nearly enough, and I
| think it should be far more publicized as a deterrent
| effect (the fact that it isn't is a pretty big indictment
| of the current government). But it's certainly not
| laughable.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Who is gonna arrest Bibi?
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| The same people who arrested Olmert
| edanm wrote:
| Well, he _is_ on trial. So he could be arrested. Prime
| Ministers _have_ been arrested (and jailed!) before.
|
| A part of what the Isareli opposition has been pushing
| for in the last few years has been removing Netanyahu
| from power and presumably jailing him because of the
| corruption charges.
| edanm wrote:
| Btw, the literal sub-headline of the article includes
| this sentence:
|
| "prompting the military prosecution to call for a review
| into possible war crimes".
| cma wrote:
| For each of their "operations" on Gaza they usually had
| one or two soldiers in trouble for something like
| stealing and using a civilians credit card. When there
| were many more serious crimes like deliberately targeting
| the disabled.
| originalvichy wrote:
| They can take out nuclear scientists thousands of kilometers
| away by either planting bombs in their cars in traffic or
| firing accurate munitions through their windows when they
| sleep.
|
| Thousands of kilometers away.
|
| The IDF can be highly sophisticated in their plans and
| methods when they want to.
| alkhatib wrote:
| Those things you described are also war crimes.
|
| Calling it sophisticated does not change that fact.
| andrepd wrote:
| I think the point is that if Israel can do pinpoint
| decapitation strikes anywhere in Iran they sure as hell
| can do so in Gaza, but they choose to bomb hospitals and
| flatten every single building in the Gaza Strip instead.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| This. Israel demonstrably has the capability for
| precision warfare.
|
| That they chose to level infrastructure across Gaza
| instead is indicative.
|
| And it'd be real stretch to assume they did so even for
| military-economic reasons.
|
| They knew the world community would give them some leeway
| after Oct 7th, so exploited it as far as possible to
| militarily achieve their geo-political goals.
|
| To wit, the elimination of anything resembling a
| Palestinian state: politically, economically, and
| demographically.
|
| Which is cynical and evil as fuck, given they're smart
| enough to realize they eventually either have to (a) kill
| every Palestinian or (b) make a deal.
|
| Instead, they decided killing 50,000+ Palestinians was
| worth improving their negotiation position and kicking
| the can down the road.
| acdha wrote:
| > They knew the world community would give them some
| leeway after Oct 7th, so exploited it as far as possible
| to militarily achieve their geo-political goals.
|
| That's my read as well. I was strongly pro-Israel for
| decades and while I was never comfortable with the plight
| of Palestinians Hamas had a lot of the blame, too, but
| the last year really moved me over to thinking that the
| people who said most of the "accidents" over the years
| were intentional were correct. They can pull off these
| amazingly accurate strikes when they want to, it's
| implausible that they suddenly have the precision of a
| drunken 18th century musketeer around aid workers and
| civilians. Their leadership clearly do not care and
| collective punishment is a war crime no matter who does
| it.
| originalvichy wrote:
| The term "mowing the lawn"[1] has been used to describe
| their long term strategy, so I can "excuse" someone for
| thinking that they can't control the situation, but it's
| been a tactic for a long time.
|
| HN readers can recognize the tactic in other parts of our
| world too. It's the strategy of people in power who
| believe they can control the chaos. When chaos in one
| group is a benefit to the other, chaos becomes a worthy
| status quo. When your military is infinitely more
| powerful, any uprising can eventually be exhausted, and
| you get automatic casus belli. The Cold War was full of
| this destabilizing politics, where superpowers tried
| their best to turn functioning socities into hellholes,
| in the hopes that it would spread in the enemy's region.
| The same works for Israel. The less legitimacy Gaza and
| the West Bank Palestinians have, the longer they can keep
| building settlements. If they ever gain independence, it
| will cause another war, which has been planned for,
| because settlements have been overwhelmingly built on
| higher ground. Illegal settlers will not give up easily,
| and will likely gain military assistance.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| To be fair, the Iranian state is a proper military. I'm
| not sure if there is a way to fight a guerilla force
| without massive civilian casualties. (Which is why one
| generally shouldn't.)
|
| A better analog might be Hezbollah. Surgically
| dispatched. Resolved with minimal follow-on nonsense from
| both sides.
| parshua wrote:
| You do understand they actually targeted whole apartment
| blocks in Iran, right? 10s of civilians dead. Not so
| sophisticated. Just criminals.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Those things you described are also war crimes_
|
| No, it's war. Targeted killing of a military scientist is
| war. Gunning down civilians trying to get food is a war
| crime. If we start labelling all war as criminal, the
| term loses all meaning.
| joker99 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but you're comparing apples to bedrooms. Israel
| vs. Iran is a war/conflict between two proper countries'
| militaries - which means that both belligerents stick to
| certain agreed upon rules and military traditions, such as
| trying to separate the civilian from the military
| world/infrastructure. In lack of another word (haven't
| slept, please forgive me for the choice of word), there's
| "honor" and a notion of equality and respect (somewhat)
| between the foes, even if Iran has declared it wants to
| wipe Israel off the map.
|
| All of this does not apply to the conflict with Hamas. With
| them muddling the lines, it's extremely hard to fight a
| "clean" war. You're between a rock and a hard place -
| either you lose but with your head held high and your moral
| compass intact, or you stoop to their level thereby slowly
| losing your values but win in the end. If that win is worth
| it or not, is heavily debated in the rest of the world, but
| only debated in the fringes of Israeli society. But no
| military expert is able to suggest a real alternative of
| fighting Hamas without inflicting heavy losses on one's own
| army.
|
| I find the committed war crimes abhorrent and wish they'd
| be heavily prosecuted at least.
| originalvichy wrote:
| For as long as countries like Israel stand against giving
| Palestinians a legitimate state, militias and terror
| groups will continue to rise. The US showed that it was
| possible to fight an insurgency as an occupying force
| without resorting to literally levelling cities. It was
| not easy, it took more lives than they hoped, but they
| did it anyway, because they at least acted like war
| crimes out in the open was off limits.
| poly2it wrote:
| On the flip side, this is not as controversial (or even at
| all in western media) when done by the Ukraine military
| (not specifically nuclear scientists). This is not a
| justification, but I think some characteristics of conflict
| are less interesting/important to focus on when trying to
| formalise critique against an assailant. This would be more
| important if contrasted with for example a conflicting
| ideological narrative.
| FranzFerdiNaN wrote:
| Why would the government hold someone accountable for its own
| actions? Let's not pretend that this is just some random
| soldiers doing this, this is exactly what the Israeli
| government wants.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Well, there is actually a reasonable reason. Typically you'd
| want the government to hold people accountable so you could
| have the thin veneer of operating by the rules of warfare and
| not committing war crimes. That's usually been a popular
| strategy of the US for when someone goes a little too far (or
| gets caught).
|
| As far as I can tell Israel doesn't particularly care for
| even looking like it's trying to behave responsibly. I don't
| think they've held anyone responsible for even some of the
| most obvious war crimes we have evidence of being committed.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Soldiers shooting at civilians is a war crime. It does not
| matter what the intentions of the soldiers are. It doesn't
| even matter if the civilians are also armed up until the
| point they display violent intent according to a common
| person standard. Shooting at a crowd is a crime.
|
| That said the soldiers pulling the trigger are committing
| crimes. These are patently illegal actions to a common person
| standard which eliminates any defense of following military
| orders. That being said the soldiers, at least, are
| committing crimes. Accountability starts at the source of the
| crime.
|
| If the government is ordering these actions then those are
| illegal orders, according to international standards of
| military conduct. The soldiers on the ground must ignore
| those orders on the basis of patently illegal conduct
| according to a common person standard and the officials
| facilitating those orders can be investigated for issuing war
| crimes.
|
| As an example read about Slobodan Milosevic
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87
| roenxi wrote:
| NATO was conducting defensive operations against Yugoslavia
| around that time. It isn't clear that war crimes can be
| committed so easily by US allies. It'd be nice if they can
| be recognised though.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding here. War
| crimes are not judged by what a diligent investigation
| after the fact might find. It hinges on the information and
| judgement by those acting in the moment. You are a soldier
| told these armed people a click out are the insurgent group
| you are fighting? Of course you can engage them. And there
| is a similar lenient standard applied to whoever got that
| information in the first place. War by any other standard
| of course would be entirely unworkable.
| xorcist wrote:
| Because "the govahment" is not a singular entity. In
| functioning democracies, by popular definition in large parts
| of the field, legislative and executive powers are kept
| separated from the judicial powers. So the executive power
| can not interfere with being held accountable. That's not
| fullt implemented everywhere, but that is the general idea
| how it is supposed to work.
| dmurray wrote:
| Well, the civilian leadership is obviously in favour of
| massacring civilians, the military leadership orders
| civilians to be massacred, and the soldiers on the ground
| revel in the opportunity to massacre civilians. And the
| courts are happy to allow the massacre of civilians.
|
| In functioning democracies in general, sure, you have to be
| careful not to tar everyone with the same brush. But in the
| specific case of Israel in 2015, it's not realistic to
| argue that the government isn't a single entity, so some
| parts of it may not be responsible (or even in favour of)
| crimes against humanity.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Why would the government hold someone accountable for its
| own actions?
|
| Because that is what keeps the ICC off of their backs. The
| ICC only has authority to step in in cases where national
| jurisdiction is unable or unwilling to prevent and prosecute
| war crimes.
| ajb wrote:
| Even ignoring primary crimes, under Israeli law, even
| _incitement_ to genocide is punishable by death. But so many
| members of the political and media elite have made inciting
| statements, that the rubicon is crossed; the political class
| cannot allow any serious, independent consideration of war
| crimes to ever occur, because that would risk them all facing
| the firing squad. This in turn signals to individual soldiers
| that there will be no accountability, even in the absence of
| directives.
| roshin wrote:
| Regarding the risk to Israelis facing the firing squad, you
| do know that Israel only executed Eichmann (and one other
| person in a field court) since the founding of the country?
|
| When it comes to the list of things that Israelis fear, being
| sentenced to a firing squad is very low down.
| ajb wrote:
| Fair enough, but I don't think that makes the incentive
| much different. If you are convicted of a crime punishable
| by death, your actual punishment is not likely to be
| trivial.
| throw9032093 wrote:
| Government and regime can always change. Post socialist
| countries convinced border guards, for shooting unarmed
| civilians, who were trying to escape across country
| borders. That was a crime even under socialist laws.
|
| If Israel had regime change, new regime and majority of
| voters would be pro Arab... New government could actually
| enforce existing laws!
| ruined wrote:
| israel executes plenty of people. maybe if it's done by the
| military it doesnt count
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_war_crimes_in_the_Gaz
| a...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240104213949/https://www.midd
| l...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240424005326/https://news.un.
| o...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240409122432/https://thehill.
| c...
|
| https://archive.is/UJb6g
| rbanffy wrote:
| > even incitement to genocide is punishable by death
|
| For that to happen, the government, and the overall
| population, would need to consider what's being done in Gaza
| and on the West Bank to actually be a genocide. I don't think
| popular support for that actually exists in Israel. Last time
| I checked, most of the population supported the annexation of
| Gaza and the forced eviction of the local population to
| neighboring countries.
|
| I don't think I'll live to see a two-state solution.
| ajb wrote:
| You may be missing a legal wrinkle: the crime of incitement
| usually does not require the underlying primary crime to
| actually occur. (Admittedly I'm not sure if that is the
| definition in Israel, but they inherited a lot of British
| law so it is likely). So this does not require the Israeli
| population to accept that this was a genocide, only that
| some war crimes occurred and that they should be
| prosecuted. Right now they are not there, but the point is
| that the government has an incentive to keep the population
| in that state.
| cma wrote:
| There isn't popular support for it when you factor in the
| Israeli-Palestian but in opinion polling it has now gone
| beyond 50% among the rest of the Israeli population.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Where I hope this comes back, after the conflict and a new
| Israel government, is human culpability for automated
| systems.
|
| AI being whitewashing for IP is disruptive and troubling.
|
| It being whitewashing for war crimes is a much more serious
| problem.
|
| _If_ Israel /IDF put in place a automated system that gave
| effectively caused war crimes to be committed, some humans in
| positions of power need to be held responsible and face
| consequences.
|
| The world should not allow cases where (a) it's undisputed
| that war crimes occurred but (b) authority was interwoven in
| an automated system in such a way that humans escape
| consequences.
|
| Sadly, it'll probably take the fall of right-wing Israeli and
| current Russian governments to have a hope of passing
| through.
| vkou wrote:
| > is human culpability for automated systems.
|
| Human culpability for crimes committed by large _human_
| systems isn 't ever going to happen. I wouldn't hold my
| breath for the automated ones.
| basisword wrote:
| You mean the government whose leader is facing a corruption
| trial?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's even worse: Awful lot of people die for the careers of
| politicians and it's not limited to Israel. If someone needs
| political tension for weathering a scandal or economic turmoil,
| it can be created artificially by killing certain people and
| they do it all the time.
|
| I have distaste for Trump but something I appreciate about him
| is his abilities to stage a theatre with his "fake" bombings.
| The more mainstream politicians have much more sociopathic
| tendencies.
|
| If you think about it, %100 of modern wars are about who is
| going to be the administrator and doesn't feel like can win an
| election. We live in a world of abundance, there's no reason
| for a group of people to kill other group for their resources.
| If it wasn't for the careers of some people with huge egos all
| this can be sorted out through civil matters. After the wars it
| gets sorted out anyway, we don't see mass exterminations
| anymore.
| deadbabe wrote:
| They were just following orders.
| tkel wrote:
| We already knew this was happening from testimony from Gazans, it
| was obvious that the new US-Israeli monopolized "aid"
| organization was running the Hunger Games, with dozens killed by
| Israelis (+ US contractors) every time there was a distribution
| day, and horrific pictures and video of it. Entirely predictable
| too when the genocidaires are controlling the aid. It is good
| there is now proof from the inside as well.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _...the new US-Israeli monopolized "aid" organization was
| running the Hunger Games, with dozens killed by Israelis (+ US
| contractors) every time there was a distribution day ... the
| genocidaires are controlling the aid._
|
| It was apparently 2 VCs and not the military that came up with
| GHF (and if I recall, there even was a brief flare up between
| the ruling Cabinet and the Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, who did
| not want the IDF to be responsible for aid).
| Even though the early planning was led by the Israeli military,
| two Israeli technology investors played an influential role in
| shaping discussions as they progressed, according to six
| Israeli and American individuals familiar with the GHF's
| origins. One was Liran Tancman, an entrepreneur and reservist
| in the IDF's 8200 signals intelligence unit, who called for
| using biometric identification systems outside the distribution
| hubs to vet Palestinian civilians. Another was Michael
| Eisenberg, an American Israeli venture capitalist who argued
| that existing U.N. aid distribution networks were sustaining
| Hamas and needed to be overhauled.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/24/gaza-humanit...
| / https://archive.vn/TugwR
| cma wrote:
| > One was Liran Tancman, an entrepreneur and reservist in the
| IDF's 8200 signals intelligence unit, who called for using
| biometric identification systems outside the distribution
| hubs to vet Palestinian civilians.
|
| Gives the feeling of the serial number tattoos the Germans
| used, with tech "fixing" the bad optics of doing that, but
| the biometric ID serves as one.
| spacecadet wrote:
| If we look at history, do the oppressed always become oppressors?
| meindnoch wrote:
| Mostly, yes.
|
| Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire, then became
| conquerors of the world.
|
| Russians were oppressed by the Mongols, then became conquerors
| of Eurasia.
|
| Communists were oppressed by Tsarists, then became ruthless
| oppressors themselves.
|
| Protestants were oppressed in Europe, so they set sail to
| America and became oppressors of the natives.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Not sure if I would lump all those up together, these
| examples are overly broad and have little in common. There's
| more than a thousand years and basically no causal link
| between Roman persecution of early Christians and Crusades,
| let alone European imperialism, especially if you take
| Ethiopian, Greek, Georgian, and Armenian Christians into
| account. Same for Russians and Mongols, there's a pretty
| large gap with a ton of events in between, and Mongol Empire
| was humongous to begin with, it wasn't about Rus' in
| particular. And communists that became ruthless oppressors
| were already radicalized during the persecution, it was
| literally the radical wing of a militant faction of a huge
| umbrella party that included people that would have felt
| right at home in modern EU (e.g. Kollontai and her early
| activism).
|
| The better explanation is simple and banal - power
| concentration makes people abuse it.
| spacecadet wrote:
| I wouldn't consider this "lumping the groups together", or
| that they must exist together in time... its likely a group
| may require many generations before they can "oppress"
| another group.
|
| My list of examples is very similar to this one and the ven
| diagram here is "was oppressed became oppressor"... in most
| cases it appears that only if the oppressed are destroyed
| or I would argue in the case of America- controlled at the
| margins... then they don't circle back around to abuse
| their newly acquired power.
| laurent_du wrote:
| Communists were absolutely not oppressed by Tsarists.
| poly2it wrote:
| Were protestants _the_ oppressors of the native Americans?
| Many partook, for example the French.
| perlgeek wrote:
| I'd say it's very hard for a powerful nation to not suppress
| somebody in the long run.
|
| Just think of any powerful nation (or group of people, or
| whatever), and try to think of somebody they have oppressed, or
| are still oppressing. It's typically not hard to come up with
| examples.
| spacecadet wrote:
| Agreed. Its possible that the group survived their oppression
| and becomes powerful enough to oppress, they loose their
| identify, in the sense that their culture evolves, along the
| way. Resulting in oppression along some axis.
| locallost wrote:
| I don't know if it's always the case, but it's true if given
| the opportunity. In the end all people are the same. Cultures
| may be different, but our lizard brains are the same. Us vs
| them, and dehumanizing others into something less than humans,
| whose suffering does not concern us.
| bombcar wrote:
| No. Many times the oppressed simply cease to exist (by
| assimilation, assassination, or other means).
|
| Neanderthals aren't going to become oppressors.
| spacecadet wrote:
| Well yeah, I meant if they go on to survive and become
| significant enough to be considered oppressive...
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Why though, what does it achieve? Do they want to make sure that
| there will be terrorists / freedom fighters in the future so that
| they have a reason not to negotiate? Because they expect to "win"
| if violence continues?
| andrepd wrote:
| Netanyahu has privately expressed preference for terrorist
| Hamas over political Fatah, and Israel has propped up those
| terrorist groups in the past (this is well documented not a
| conspiracy theory).
|
| Why? Because Netanyahu and a good chunk of the Israeli
| population want the Palestinians to cease to exist and its
| territory to be part of Israel. An opponent that wants to
| achieve its goals through political action and appeals to the
| international community meant that there was a risk of Israel
| being dragged into a two-state commitment. A terrorist group
| attacking civilians gives those hardliners a perpetual excuse
| to go to war.
|
| In short: the answer is yes, that appears to be precisely the
| point: to prevent any possibility of peaceful reconciliation
| and drive the Palestinians to eventual expulsion or
| eradication.
| jopsen wrote:
| > to prevent any possibility of peaceful reconciliation
|
| This seems like a feasible goal.
|
| > and drive the Palestinians to eventual expulsion or
| eradication.
|
| That strategy haven't worked for what 50 years, what makes
| anyone think it'll work anytime ever?
|
| The Palestinians don't exactly have anywhere to go.
| earnestinger wrote:
| If there is a lot of malnutrition, population numbers will
| change without migration.
| tveita wrote:
| You can't kill 2.1 million people by bombing them.
|
| That's why Israel has systematically taken out every hospital
| in Gaza: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd25d9vp2qo
|
| Has blocked and sabotaged aid at every turn, including bombing
| UN food trucks: https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1158746
|
| And when allied countries got too uneasy about them just
| blocking all aid trucks at the border, they set up their own
| aid organization to trickle out nominal amounts of food while
| they take pot shots at people desperate enough to show up:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74ne108e4vo
|
| They didn't just make this up as they go, presumably the plans
| have been sitting around for a long time waiting for a suitable
| moment.
| yoavm wrote:
| I think that's a very unsensible comment.
|
| 1. You definitely can kill 2.1 million people by bombing
| them. It's actually way easier than doing it with a gun. 2.
| If you decide to do it with a gun, and you end up killing
| tens when tens of thousands are gathering for food, you're
| aiming terribly. 3. There is enough proof of Hamas using
| hospital facilities as headquarters. 4. Instead of getting
| food into Gaza (paid partly by Israel) only to get people to
| gather and then shoot tens of them every day, Israel could
| have just not let food in.
|
| In other words, none of this makes sense. There's a war. Yes,
| Israel is committing terrible crimes. No, it's not because
| they aim to kill everyone, it's because they really stopped
| caring about killing civilians. It's horrific and is illegal.
|
| There is actually one party in this conflict that has
| deliberately said it's aiming to kill civilians, and that's
| Hamas. I have no idea about your personal opinion, but I
| suspect that many of the people who are shouting "genocide!"
| would have been very quiet if the Jews were the ones being
| slaughtered, and I have absolutely no doubt that if only
| Hamas had the power, it would have committed way more serious
| crimes than the IDF ever committed.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Though probably true, it is irrelevant. Hamas doesn't have
| the power, and Israel does. This war is almost entirely one
| sided.
| yoavm wrote:
| My point was that the comment I was commenting on was
| false, and that many people who express that sentiment
| wouldn't be expressing it if the powers were flipped. I'm
| personally very glad that the powers aren't flipped
| because I think that if Hamas had F-16s there would many
| more deaths.
| earnestinger wrote:
| > and that many people who express that sentiment
| wouldn't be expressing it if the powers were flipped
|
| That is definitely not true.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Do you really genuinely believe that typical american
| liberal types would ignore a genocide committed against
| Jewish people by anyone, particularly arabs? In the
| American liberal mind "genocide" is, essentially,
| synonymous with The Holocaust, and I think your average
| liberal is, if anything, sensitive to Jewish
| discrimination, over and above random people out there in
| the world. There are definitely anti-semetic Americans
| and they should be launched into the sun, but I think
| your sense that people wouldn't care if Jews were being
| killed in the tens of thousands is extremely off point.
| yoavm wrote:
| I'm sorry, I live in Europe and I was referring more to
| the kind of protests and protesters I see around me. The
| aren't many liberal Americans there. I completely agree
| that the situation could be different elsewhere.
| closewith wrote:
| Where do you live in Europe that you believe those
| opposing the Israeli genocide in Gaza would support a
| genocide of Jewish people anywhere? Because that is an
| outrageously delusional view.
| yoavm wrote:
| I don't think that my exact location is very relevant
| here, but I urge you to ask protesters around you how
| they see "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be
| free" turning into reality, and let me know what happens
| with the Jews according to their plans.
| hedora wrote:
| Jewish groups have been supporting those protests in the
| US, Europe and Israel.
|
| I have no idea what crowd composition at European
| protests looks like, but the vast majority of the people
| upset about the ongoing genocide are not antisemetic.
|
| There is a propaganda campaign in the US trying to
| conflate being against genocide with being antisemetic.
| I'm sure similar tactics are being used in Europe.
| yoavm wrote:
| I am myself supporting many of these protests, and it's
| exactly from this perspective that I say that many of
| them are antisemitic. But this is a bit of a useless
| discussion because neither you nor I can bring any
| evidence into how antisemitic they are, or how and if
| they would react if (or when) Palestinians are
| slaughtering Jews.
|
| If you think it's nonsense, try to go into a anti-war
| protest with a t-shirt saying that Jews too should be
| able to live in Middle East. If this thought makes you
| slightly concerned, you got my point.
| earnestinger wrote:
| Not sure I get your point.
|
| Try the same, but opposite argument.
|
| Something like: Would you wear a t-shirt saying
| "Palestine is treated unfairly" to oct7 memorial or
| airport/border crossing?
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| If the Israeli administration could get away with fire
| bombing the strip, it'd have done so a long time ago. The
| whole world is screaming at them to stop the genocide and
| you think it's them just not "caring about civilians"
| that's responsible for this. There's no war in Gaza,
| there's only a genocide. A holocaust.
|
| I'm not Arab, I'm not Muslim. I've never met a Jewish
| person. I've no reason to have any prejudice against people
| of Jewish heritage or ethnicity. But it's still a genocide
| by any definitions of the word. A lot of Jewish people even
| agree with this. And the reason that you and most Israeli
| people seem to struggle to grasp it is because they've been
| drinking on this exact extremist rhetoric that the "other"
| side only wants to see them slaughtered. By the same
| measure, you're saying Hamas can justify it's actions since
| there will always be ultra-Zionist factions of Israeli
| societies that wants to see Palestinians slaughtered. I
| implore you to wake up to what is being done in the name of
| your people.
| yoavm wrote:
| I am an Arab Jew, and I actually have many friends in
| Gaza. I don't disagree about the usage of the words
| Genocide, though I think the terms is a little too easy
| to apply. I think a Holocaust is a completely different
| thing. There are Palestinians in the Israeli parliament,
| in the Supreme Court. No one is gathering Palestinians in
| gas chambers, and in general the Palestinian population
| only grew since the establishment of Israel. If there
| were more Jews in Europe after WW2 than before it, no one
| would remember it as a Holocaust.
|
| There is war in Gaza in the simple sense that rockets
| from Gaza still shoot into Israel, that Israeli hostages
| are still being held, and that Hamas itself (the elected
| goverenement) says it would attack again. It's a very
| unbalanced conflict, and in it terrible crimes are
| committed that you can call genocidal. But Jews in the
| ghettos weren't bombing Berlin - not during WW2 and not
| after it.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| That's an interpretation of events that I've heard from a
| lot of Israeli folks that are in some way horrified
| what's happening in Gaza. I think it's very naive and I
| don't even think most folks saying this believe in it
| themselves. What actions from the IDF, what imbalance of
| power, what civilian casualty rates will you need to see
| to believe that it's no longer a war? Are you really
| waiting for the actual mass starvation to take place
| before accept there's intent? Does it have to be gas
| chambers? Does the death toll have to pass 1 million? 6
| million? Do you really think that the Israeli government
| wants to brings the hostages back? What do you think
| would happen after they did bring them back? Will you
| rescind your support then?
|
| Jews in the Ghetto didn't get the chance to shoot rockets
| at Berlin but had they been able to fight back, I'd have
| given them the same understanding that I currently
| extends to Palestinians that grew up in the concentration
| camp that is Gaza. Hamas is the direct results of Israeli
| policies of the past decades. Even if the IDF manages to
| somehow invent some purity test for Gazans that it can
| use to confirm there are no longer any Hamas members left
| and it finally declares it's operations concluded, you'll
| have people shooting rockets at Israel if they keep their
| policies with the Gaza strip and the West Bank. But long
| term solutions come later, right now, Israelis need to
| wake up and say no to what is unfolding in the name of
| their security.
| yoavm wrote:
| I will stop thinking that this conflict is a war when
| there will be a side in it that doesn't have the
| motivation to take over all the land, and acts towards it
| by attempting to kill the other. As long as there are two
| parties that are constantly trying to kill each other, I
| call that a war. As I wrote elsewhere - that doesn't mean
| I disagree with the idea that genocidal actions are being
| taken during this war.
|
| Your comment about Jews in Ghetto is wrong at every
| possible level. Jews were killed in the Holocaust
| _without_ a conflict, _without_ attempting to kill
| Germans, _without_ fighting with anyone over the land and
| _without_ having any aspirations to control the other.
| That is an example of a situation where there is no war,
| and no, it has nothing to do with the situation between
| Israelis and Palestinians.
| hedora wrote:
| There were more than 100 armed jewish uprisings in
| Germany during WWII:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_resistance_in_German
| -oc...
|
| Going through your criteria in order: Of course they
| defended themselves, including attempts to kill Nazis.
| They also attempted to keep their homes, and certainly
| would have rather Germany have different leadership
|
| Does that somehow mean the concentration camps were a
| "war"?
| earnestinger wrote:
| I think the parent meant there were no shooting before
| the genocide started. Jewish resistances were reactive to
| nazi actions.
|
| I.e. there was not even a possibility that nazis were
| defending. While somebody from Palestine side did fire
| the opening salvo on oct7.
| alkyon wrote:
| Stop telling lies about Gaza conflict being "war".
| Israeli military has absolute superiority over
| Palestinians. What it is is a genocidal campaign meant to
| wipe them off the face of the Earth.
|
| Also, stop using the Holocaust as a propaganda tool. My
| grandfather happened to be a Buchenwald concentration
| camp survival. It didn't give him or anybody else any
| right to violate Geneva convention.
| yoavm wrote:
| First, I don't recall you set the rules for discussion
| here. Now, to your points:
|
| 1. Genocidal actions can take place in a war, and no
| definition of a war ever said that the parties have to be
| of equal strength. Every war that was ever won by one
| side or another had some sort of power supremacy. Go read
| the legal definition for genocide and you'll learn that
| the question of imbalance of power plays absolutely no
| role in it.
|
| 2. I haven't used it as a propaganda tool, and in fact it
| wasn't me who brought it up at all. I was only commenting
| that the current situation in Gaza is not comparable to
| the Holocaust, and I fully stand behind it. To make it
| clear, I am very happy that it isn't comparable, and I
| wouldn't want to see any Palestinian suffering like my
| ancestors did. Not once in my life have I used it to
| justify crimes committed by Jews, so please learn to read
| before commenting on my posts. If anything, I always
| believed that what Jews went through should serve as a
| reminder for us to never allow things like that from
| happening again, and I still see the Holocaust as perhaps
| one of the main driving forces in my opposition to this
| war.
| alkyon wrote:
| I didn't mention any HN rules, so you're mainly arguing
| with yourself.
|
| Shooting at mothers trying to get humanitarian aid for
| their starving children does not fulfil any definition of
| war I am aware of.
|
| Read history books yourself. Once one side of a war
| becomes dominant, it just ends.
|
| Unless it is not really a war but a hideous genocide
| campaign cynically carried out by Israeli government
| under the pretext of self-defensive war.
| earnestinger wrote:
| > Once one side of a war becomes dominant, it just ends.
|
| Sorry for being pedanto, but other side must stop
| resisting for war to end. Guerrilla warfare is quite
| usual when there is great power imbalance.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| > You definitely can kill 2.1 million people by bombing
| them. It's actually way easier than doing it with a gun
|
| Only if you have enough bombs, which they need to
| constantly purchase from the US using aid money given to
| them by the US.
|
| They don't have the stockpiles to eradicate without using
| their (not so) secret nukes. If they were to do that,
| there'd be a lot worse follow on effects for Israel. If
| they simply trickle the deaths over time, people get tired
| of the horror and need to look away for their own sanity.
| yoavm wrote:
| Genuinely wondering what terrible effects would there be
| for Israel if they used nukes? Not morally,
| internationally. IMO it's perhaps one of the few
| conflicts in the world where one side could theoretically
| use nuclear weapons and essentially no one will shoot
| back. "Trickle the deaths over time" doesn't make any
| sense - there are probably more births in Gaza than
| deaths now, and that's not including the general
| Palestinian population.
| stormfather wrote:
| The point is to colonize Gaza, they won't irradiate it
| first.
| anton-c wrote:
| Well officially Israel doesn't have nukes. They are
| widely believed to have them ofc but that's something
| they have to consider. Breaking the ambiguity by _using_
| them could spark a lot of 'we told you they were super
| dangerous' responses(with action) possibly. You might be
| right tho.
| keutoi wrote:
| No one will shoot back now. But it is a signal to other
| countries that using nukes might not be that bad. Even
| other banned chemical and biological weapons. So either
| there is complete chaos or the whole world will have to
| make sure Israel can not profit from this action.
| perlgeek wrote:
| From Israel's perspective, Palestinians are a problem. Long
| term, they have a few options:
|
| 1) Give them their own state. This is difficult for quite many
| reasons, and Israel (by which I mean the current government)
| doesn't want that
|
| 2) Give them full citizenship rights equal to Israel's
| citizens, make sure they have a proper minority representation,
| and let them participate in the regular political processes.
| The current government certainly doesn't want that, and I have
| no idea what part of the Palestinians would want that.
|
| 3) Continue to treat them as sub-human, and deal with the
| consequences of the hatred that fosters. That seems to have
| been the "strategy" before October last year.
|
| 4) Try to exterminate or exile them, or at least decimating
| them to such an extend that the problem becomes smaller.
|
| Since 1) and 2) are (again, from the perspective of Isreal's
| government) undesirable, and 3) has stopped working, 4) seems
| to be their current strategy.
| msgodel wrote:
| You'd think given Israel's history they'd do everything they
| could to not make 4) acceptable.
| tradethedelta wrote:
| I think it's the contrary. "Never again" means by any means
| necessary we will prevent another genocide of our people,
| even if it means committing genocide unto others. That much
| has become clear.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's very common for people to treat their own side as
| naturally right, and excuse anything their side does,
| simply *because* it is their own side.
|
| For a commonplace example, look at a soccer match, fans
| screaming at the referee whenever a decision doesn't go
| their team's way.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| I don't think there's much overlapping between those who
| experienced the holocaust and whoever is in charge in
| Israel right now.
|
| Speaking for experience from some relatives, the
| immigration laws for people of jewish faith and ancestry
| were nigh insurmountable if you came from african, arab or
| middle east countries and pretty much just nominal even in
| recent times for those who had even a remote connection but
| came from the US and the UK.
|
| I have the feeling they are jewish the same way Henry IV
| was a Catholic when he said "Paris is well worth a Mass".
| ndiddy wrote:
| Many of the Zionists viewed the Holocaust as teaching that
| the Jewish people need a state of their own, no matter what
| it takes or how many people they have to kill. They viewed
| the European Jews who had died in the Holocaust as weak,
| passive cowards who had "allowed" the Holocaust to happen,
| and went like sheep to their slaughter (ignoring the Warsaw
| Uprising, and all of the underground Jewish resistance
| movements). I think Israel's current actions reflect this
| viewpoint.
| rgblambda wrote:
| >Give them full citizenship rights equal to Israel's
| citizens, make sure they have a proper minority
| representation
|
| As the Palestinians are the majority, the Jewish Israelis
| would become a minority in terms of citizens and votes. This
| is very much akin to Apartheid South Africa, where a minority
| ethnic group rules over the rest of the population.
| yoavm wrote:
| The White minority in South Africa were around 15% of the
| population, while Jews and Palestinians in Israel &
| Palestine seem to be much more around a 50%-50% split.
| xorcist wrote:
| Or exile is probably the key word. There are more historical
| examples of exoduses than genocides.
|
| The problem with understanding this situation is that it
| probably has more to do with Israel's internal politics than
| what the situation looks like on the ground in Gaza and
| elsewhere. Just a quick read from the wikipedia page should
| give an idea just how corrupt the situation really is.
|
| There's also the fact that Palestinians aren't a homogenous
| group in any sense of the word. That makes it hard for them
| to unite under any political flag. It also doesn't help that
| the borders are all closed, from both sides, and no
| neighboring country are willing to accept them.
|
| From the outside the situation certainly looks very bleak.
| edanm wrote:
| > Continue to treat them as sub-human, and deal with the
| consequences of the hatred that fosters. That seems to have
| been the "strategy" before October last year.
|
| This is a pretty big claim, and I highly disagree with it. I
| didn't particularly like Israeli policy towards Palestinians
| for the last 15 years, but they were certainly not treated as
| "sub-human". Gazans, specifically, were governed by Hamas,
| which had a lot more say in how the average Gazan was reacted
| than ISrael did.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Gaza was governed by Hamas under an Israeli blockade. You
| don't think that had any effect on Gaza lives?
| edanm wrote:
| (An Israeli and Egyptian blockade)
|
| Yes, I do think it had an effect, but less of one than
| their governing body did, hence my saying so.
|
| Either way, unless you think the blockade itself is
| "Israel treating Gazans as sub-human", then my point
| still stands.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > I didn't particularly like Israeli policy towards
| Palestinians for the last 15 years, but they were certainly
| not treated as "sub-human".
|
| Garbage. Gaza had its only airport bombed to oblivion 20
| years ago and was told any attempt to repair it would
| result in the same. Its port has been blockaded by the
| Israeli navy for 15 years. Its only land exits have been
| heavily locked down.
|
| Israel will routinely turn electricity off to the country
| for days to punish for something, be it a rocket attack, or
| teens throwing stones. They've even turned off water for
| days too.
|
| That's treating people as subhuman, imprison them and do
| things like that to them for decades.
| edanm wrote:
| The Gazan government is a declared enemy of Israel,
| wanting its destruction. It has used hundreds of millions
| of dollars in aid to build its militant group to fight
| Israel.
|
| Given the circumstances, Gaza's neighbors blockade it to
| keep it from building an even _bigger_ fighting force.
|
| > Israel will routinely turn electricity off to the
| country for days to punish for something, be it a rocket
| attack,
|
| You mean, when occasionally Hamas will try to kill random
| Israeli civilians using rocket fire? Which is basically a
| declaration of war and causes Israel to fight back?
|
| > or teens throwing stones.
|
| I don't think that's actually true.
|
| > That's treating people as subhuman,
|
| Israel is treating Hamas-controlled Gaza as a hostile
| enemy that is intent on destroying it. Given that Hamas,
| even under the blockade and with all the restrictions in
| place, still managed to invade Israel and kill a thousand
| citizens, while kidnapping and holding hostage 250
| civilians, and still, a year and a half later, is holding
| these people hostage and torturing them daily... given
| that, I think it's hard to say blockading them was a bad
| idea.
|
| If you think the blockade is the _reason_ for their
| actions, then you 're quite simply wrong - they were
| founded many years before and always had the same goal of
| destroying Israel, including working hard against the
| peace process that was forming between Israel and the
| eventual Palestinian Authority.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > You mean, when occasionally Hamas will try to kill
| random Israeli civilians using rocket fire? Which is
| basically a declaration of war and causes Israel to fight
| back?
|
| Changing the goalposts, are we?
|
| Yes, that happens.
|
| How is Israel turning off electricity and fresh water _to
| the entire country_ as a result not considered _treating
| the population as sub-human_ (as in not deserving of
| basic human needs), the original point of this discussion
| ?
|
| > If you think the blockade is the reason for their
| actions, then you're quite simply wrong - they were
| founded many years before and always had the same goal of
| destroying Israel, including working hard against the
| peace process that was forming between Israel and the
| eventual Palestinian Authority.
|
| Oh, you're so close to the point! "The peace process
| forming between Israel and the eventual Palestinian
| Authority" is exactly why Netanyuhu and his ilk started
| supporting Hamas. Because when your explicitly stated
| goal is to evict Palestinians (and Netanyuhu has said as
| much, in as many words), global sympathy starts to wane
| when the PLA is looking for peaceful solutions (yes,
| admittedly, after periods of violence and terrorism) and
| now Israel looks like the bad guy. So let's prop up
| Hamas, because they are more extremist, and make a more
| convenient bad guy.
| glitchc wrote:
| > Since 1) and 2) are (again, from the perspective of
| Isreal's government) undesirable, and 3) has stopped working,
| 4) seems to be their current strategy.
|
| The Israeli govt and people would be very supportive of (2).
| After all, there are more Arabs living in Israel than in
| Palestine. The Palestineans, on the other hand,
| overwhelmingly reject this option.
| hedora wrote:
| Ongoing war has been a crucial component of the current
| government's re-election campaigns for decades, so any option
| that ends the war is a non-starter.
|
| I fear their plan is to expand military operations into
| additional countries until they can get back into a pseudo-
| stalemate scenario. That'd explain the bombings in Lebanon,
| Syria, Yemen and Iran.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| Perhaps it shouldn't be up to Israel to decide the future of
| non-citizens then.
| wordofx wrote:
| So HN flat out ignores history. Posts misinformation and
| propaganda. And HN sucks it up cos it's anti Israel pro
| terrorist. Really shows the mental decline of HN over the
| years.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| And why are they Israel's problem to solve? What about Jordan
| who expelled EVERY Palestinian in 1970? What about Qatar?
| What about Egypt? Lebanon? Any Arab country???
|
| Why is it Israel's problem? There was a legal agreement in
| 1948. It could have been so simple.
| tradethedelta wrote:
| The perpetual fight is mutually beneficial to all. The
| extremist right would not have been able to claim large swaths
| of land had they not had the air cover to raze Gaza. Now there
| is serious talk of going back into Gaza. And talk by Trump to
| turn it into a seaside resort has the settler movement giddy.
| Sporktacular wrote:
| "all"
| Gareth321 wrote:
| There has been so much disinformation, misinformation, and
| propaganda from so many nations and interested parties that I
| find it impossible to believe any claims anymore without seeing a
| video for myself. In this case, there are none. Even according to
| the article, the soldiers were ordered to fire on looters, which
| seems reasonable in the context of this war.
| hattimaTim wrote:
| I doubt you will believe even if you see a video. You will
| probably think it is fake.
| lordofgibbons wrote:
| This genocide has, for many people, burst any illusions of a
| "rules based world order".
|
| There multiple EU signatory countries of the Rome Statute
| (pledging to cooperate with ICC) that have welcomed these war
| criminals... who have warrants out by the ICC.
|
| And the same war criminals are invited to give a speech at the
| U.S Congress to near unanimous applause. It really makes you
| wonder if we're the "good guys".
|
| -- edit -- If you're curious how much your congressperson
| receives from AIPAC (Israeli lobby) this website is a great
| resource: https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
| o999 wrote:
| Indeed, the leading countries of so-called "free world" are
| willing to commit and support war crimes and break the intl law
| as well as DPRK or Iran when it serves their intrests, all
| while signaling virtue and progressiveness.
| stavros wrote:
| If you're still wondering if you're the good guys, you haven't
| been paying attention. I don't think there _are_ any "good
| guys" when it comes to nations, but for the US it's not even
| close.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Watching Blinken say "rules based international order" on
| camera about Ukraine was one of the few times I felt good about
| American foreign policy, then watching Blinken talk about
| Israel made it clear that it's rules for our enemies only, and
| loyalty for our "friends" which is the _precise_ opposite of a
| rules based international order.
|
| Hearing democrats decry Russian foreign influence was also
| something I was on board with, but much like Nancy Pelosi
| saying it's not corrupt when she trades on stock with private
| information, apparently it's not corrupt when the democratic
| party accepts foreign aid in the form of AIPAC donations, or
| just as likely threats of the use of Pegasus against them.
|
| It is quite sad to be an American of good conscience right now.
| It's hard to respect our country in any way when it shows such
| little moral fiber and such little backbone.
| basisword wrote:
| I really don't think that it's a coincidence that just as this
| news was starting to gain traction a few weeks ago, Isreal
| started bombing Iran. It was the perfect distraction.
| dilawar wrote:
| The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
| -- Thucydidus
| palmfacehn wrote:
| It is descriptive, but not prescriptive.
|
| If neither side can agree on peace, if neither side has
| objectives which the other will accept, if neither side is
| willing to compromise; What other outcome is possible in terms
| of realpolitik?
|
| It is upsetting to observe. We all want better for humanity.
| bombcar wrote:
| There have been cases in the past where an external strong
| power has been able to suppress both sides but it has to be
| done for generations until the reasons are lost to time.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| Depending on who you ask, there have been a variety of
| external powers stirring the pot. Most people are horrified
| by the violence. Beyond the territorial, religious and
| cultural disputes there are opposing geopolitical factions.
|
| Of course it is understandable to be outraged by the
| violence and atrocities. The human suffering is real, but
| arguments focusing on these points can miss the larger
| picture. The underlying incentives dictate outcomes.
| Atrocities are often marketed as rationalizations for
| further violence.
|
| We want to _prescribe_ an outcome without atrocities. Yet
| discussions fall into recrimination before they can
| _describe_ the conflict coherently.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Spoken by the Athenians and resulting in a war that, as
| Thucydides's audience knew quite well, Athens lost big-time.
|
| Which actually holds up quite well for everybody who loves to
| bring up that quote: realism aka "we shouldn't face the
| consequences of our actions" is the obvious rallying cry for
| people facing the consequences of their actions.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| When power, not justice, guides actions and policies, yes.
| niemandhier wrote:
| This comment thread is the most civilised online discussion I
| have seen in a long while about this particular topic, despite
| people coming from diverse backgrounds and disagreeing.
|
| In this sense, hackernews gives me hope that online culture is
| not lost yet.
| t0lo wrote:
| It's because realistically hn is an oasis of educated people
| that has been overlooked by astroturfers and foreign interests
| (very strongly including the government in this piece), and
| hasn't expanded its core demographic for profit. This is what
| the rest of the internet would be like without manipulation.
| Imagine how much better things would be
| lukan wrote:
| If HN is so educated and civic, we would be able to have more
| of that sort of debate and not just once in a while.
|
| Also note that dang is already pretty active here banning
| people.
|
| It is a topic where deep emotions come up and where fanatism
| is widespread. Also among educated people. Also not sure if
| you have not noticed before, but HN is part of a profit
| orientated venture capitalist company. Still, I also do enjoy
| this Oasis here. But I don't see how it can scale in any way
| you seem to imagine.
| t0lo wrote:
| I think people understand there's a time and a place for
| important political discussion on an otherwise tech
| community, especially because the quality and insight tends
| to be better than other places.
|
| I don't have any delusions about ycombinator seeing some of
| the things it has supported recently, but in this laughably
| dumbed down world you take what you can get.
|
| As for new communities I believe in being selective and
| restrictive- based on location, education, or interest and
| think it's the only way we can get smart communities again.
| Think how the tech barrier and slow adoption in the
| 90s/2000s resulted in a smart bubble online, and how covid
| was the death knell for distinct non homogenous smart
| online spaces because it brought everyone further online.
| It's discriminatory but look what we've become.
| joenot443 wrote:
| HN has an experienced and famously fair moderator for whom
| cultivating the conversation on this site is a full time job.
|
| I have no doubt whatsoever that dang is the biggest reason
| that HN comment sections are so high quality compared to the
| rest of the web.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| I was encouraged by yours and parents posts to look at some
| of the comments but I think I just got duped into wasting
| time with bots that are in fact astroturfing!
| asdf6969 wrote:
| HN is an oasis of borderline autistic people who have no
| knowledge or rational opinions about anything more open ended
| than which JavaScript framework is the worst
| intended wrote:
| This is at t= 3 hours, and large swathes of people asleep on a
| weekend.
|
| These types of topics pull themselves apart VERY fast, as the
| homogenity of discussion norms / definitions, shared by users
| decreases.
| oulipo wrote:
| Israel is knowingly committing a genocide, and there will be a
| Nuremberg 2 for the perpetrators and the people supporting it
| forinti wrote:
| There were Nuremberg trials because Germany capitulated. We
| don't even have sanctions on Israel and the people responsible
| will only be jailed if they step outside Israel.
|
| I am not optimistic at all and I am very afraid for Gazans.
| mhb wrote:
| Learn the definition of genocide before misusing it.
| submeta wrote:
| 377,000 people in Gaza are missing. A few thousand fled to Egypt
| while they could. The rest: Under rubbles, propably.
|
| When Netanyahu talked about Palestinians in Gaza being Amalek,
| about the necessity to destroy Amalek, he meant exactly that. And
| when the defense minister Gallant said: They are human animals,
| and then he said ,,no food, no water, no electricity", he
| punished 2.3 mill people, half of them children. That's why both
| have arrest warrants from ICJ.
|
| Over 90% of Israeli population want more death and destruction in
| Gaza. Netanyahu and Gallant are no single incidents. The whole
| Israeli society knows what their soldiers are doing in Palestine.
| And they are ok with it.
|
| This article and my comment will be flagged until dead. Just like
| anyone speaking about Israeli Apartheid, genocide, oppression in
| Palestine. But things are changing. Hasbara troll farms can't
| keep up.
| ahmetcadirci25 wrote:
| A street in Gaza, a map of dreams, and the people desperate to
| live
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/jun/26...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44387199
| lemoncookiechip wrote:
| The comment section in the article is revolting. I don't know if
| they're state actors, or if they're real people with those
| beliefs, but my god.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I don't know if they're state actors, or if they're real
| people with those beliefs
|
| Both. And also trolls, and these days GenAI.
|
| Some say "Never again means now", with the flag of Israel, and
| no sense of irony or hypocrisy. I wonder if any say the same
| words with the flag of Palestine? Hamas is still also
| genocidal, with their leaders giving similar comments about all
| Jews as the current Israel coalition members give about
| Palestinians.
|
| When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers. The IDF and
| Hamas are the elephants, and there are many innocent civilians
| (metaphorically grass) suffering because of it. The supremely
| dominant power of the IDF means the suffering grass is
| overwhelmingly on one side of a border that Israel doesn't
| recognise, but there are innocents everywhere.
|
| I don't have any answers. I have learned to recognise this kind
| of mindset, but I cannot find words to act as levers to change
| those minds.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Your comment is full of attempts to justify, excuse and
| underplay what the IDF are doing and many Israelis believe
| in. From Hamas to GenAI to trolls.
|
| Whatever the historical record that brought us here, the fact
| is, Israel's standing army (not some personal goons of some
| dictator, the standing army of a moden democratic nation),
| appear to be practically all in on executing a systemic
| genocide. And I don't think there's anyway you can justify or
| underplay that.
|
| Maybe the answer you're looking for is that good people
| anywhere shouldn't let anyone sell them a holocaust no matter
| the deal.
| navane wrote:
| Fwiw, I don't read any excuse or justification in parents
| post. The fact is that the IDF are (right now) more
| effective than Hamas in exterminating the other party.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| What you're saying is completely true. But I like to
| think that most Israelis believe that the other party
| doesn't include the countless civilians that were killed
| so far and are facing dire starvation right now. Israeli
| people should not let their grief and their fear prevent
| them from saying no from those amongst them that want to
| do terrible things.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm literally in that comment describing the IDF as
| genocidal and dominant. In another comment on this thread,
| I liken the damage the IDF is causing to "a nuke going
| off". If you think this is "underplay", what words would
| you have used? Would you insist I blame all jews, even
| though this linked story is literally showing jewish people
| living in Israel being critical of their own government's
| actions? Would you insist that I said "Palestinians"
| instead of Hamas, when it's just the militants and not the
| civilians whose actions on that side I blame?
|
| I do not divide either my criticism or sympathy by
| nationality, I divide it by victimising and victimhood --
| and even then with the humility to know that I cannot see
| through the fog of all the propaganda I'm being shown.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| But can't you see that your description of the situation
| as elephants crashing, your instinct to bring up a
| hypothetical that there's some Palestine flag waving
| person out there that has the same extremist thinking
| that the Israelis are using today, that your need to
| remind yourself that Hamas (to borrow the words of some
| other folks in the comments today, an organization that's
| literally _surrounded_ by overtly hostile populace) is
| genocidal...can't you see how replying this to what the
| GP said and the article as a whole can be "mistaken" to
| be such an attempt at underplaying?
|
| No, I don't blame all Jews at all and I've seen a lot of
| Jewish people actively work to stop the genocide. But I
| definitely blame this narrative of Hamas is what's been
| used to sell to genocide to what are otherwise normal and
| compassionate people. I believe the only people who can
| stop this are the Israeli citizens saying no and the time
| was way too long ago.
| deniswolf wrote:
| Considering the discourse of the past two years and personal
| experience, I am afraid to say that yes, those are most likely
| very real people who very openly ignore 50% of the context and
| generalize their hate towards a whole population of a single
| country. In addition (and that's from, sadly, day to day
| experience) those are the same people who extrapolate their
| hate on one particular ethnical group.
|
| I would have expected HN readers at least check on some context
| before starting beating their drums. Haaretz is a propaganda
| outlet that has been stocking the fire under everything related
| to Israel, for decades now.
| volleyball wrote:
| I guess the Israeli government's original plan to arm and support
| drug gangs and literally ISIS (euphemistically called 'clans') as
| "aid security" wasn't working out? Especially after it was
| revealed said "security" was stealing and reselling the food aid
| under the protection of IDF while the Israeli govt. and media
| blamed the looting on Hamas.
|
| And after the Israeli opposition leader exposed the whole charade
| and Netanyahu defended it saying "On the advice of security
| officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What's
| wrong with that? It only saves the lives of Israeli solders, and
| publicising this only benefits Hamas."
|
| [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/netanyahu-
| defe...
|
| [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Abu_Shabab
|
| [3] -
| https://archive.is/20250606144357/https://www.ynetnews.com/a...
| lukan wrote:
| To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists in
| general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are connected
| to ISIS?
|
| "The basis for Lieberman's allegation of ties to IS was
| unclear."
|
| It is easy to throw dirt and hope something sticks, but the
| main thing speaking against his group seems Netanjahu's support
| in my opinion. But otherwise I don't see the scandal so much
| here. Especially not compared to the scandal of intentionally
| targeting civilian population and indiscriminate killing of
| starving people like the article states.
|
| Edit: But I just read
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerem_Shalom_aid_convoy_loot...
|
| And well, that is indeed better to show who we are dealing
| with, ruthless criminals who loot and shoot a UN aid convoy for
| profit.
| ben_w wrote:
| > To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists
| in general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are
| connected to ISIS?
|
| A simple dealer vs an armed wing of a religious theocracy who
| think people like me are the devil incarnate, I'd pick the
| dealer.
|
| An organised armed drug network that necessarily has to be at
| least comparable strength to an existing network of religious
| theocrats who are obviously getting external support owing to
| the ability to continue fighting despite the evidence of
| systematic destruction of their civil environment that
| satellite imagery shows has been in aggregate comparable in
| scope and depth to a nuke going off...
|
| I don't want either of them anywhere near anyone I care
| about. Even if the latter wasn't associated with a different
| group of religious zealots.
| tuyguntn wrote:
| [flagged]
| regularization wrote:
| > I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists
|
| Netanyahu prefers Hamas, he was propping them up prior to the
| current battles, according to the New York Times
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q.
| ..
|
| Also, if, as in the recent New York City mayoral debate, US
| politicians are supposed to recognize Israel as a Jewish
| state, which it recognizes itself as, then I don't see the
| big deal over Palestine as an Islamic state. I myself would
| prefer to see a secular PFLP state, but the Zionist entity,
| US, Canada etc. fight against the PFLP, proscribe them as
| "terrorists" etc.
| lukan wrote:
| "he was propping them up prior to the current battles"
|
| Those words indicate something different, than allowing
| quatari money to reach the civilian part of Hamas
| government as part of a temporary peace deal. Because that
| sounds actually reasonable to me.
|
| Now there is indeed more, like this:
|
| "Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr.
| Netanyahu's finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the
| year he was elected to Parliament.
|
| "The Palestinian Authority is a burden," he said. "Hamas is
| an asset.""
|
| But those words came without context (just a youtube video,
| that I won't watch right now).
| nelox wrote:
| Ironically, the closest you will get to something
| approaching that type of Marxist-Leninist utopia in the
| Middle East, is living in an Israeli kibbutz near the
| border with Gaza.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Why is a civic state in the Middle East is utopia? Do you
| think that the US not based on white nationalism is also
| a Marxist-Leninist utopia?
| LunaSea wrote:
| Palestinians preferred them as well since they elected
| Hamas.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| When was the last actual election?
| xg15 wrote:
| It gets ugly at the latest when remembering that "looting"
| was always a core part of the Israeli narrative to explain
| the humanitarian crisis.
|
| Even before the current siege/semi-siege, the standard
| response to calls from aid orgs had been essentially "Look,
| it's not us. We're letting in aid, but it's not our fault if
| Palestinian armed gangs themselves are looting it after we
| let it in. Palestinians are just too stupid to organize their
| own survival."
|
| Of course that response was already ridiculous back then: The
| 1000s of aid trucks stuck at the Egypt-Gazan border are
| definitely not kept there by Hamas _or_ armed gangs. Even the
| looting attacks themselves were suspicions: Aid orgs kept
| reporting they were happening in areas under full control of
| the IDF - and IDF was forbidding using any other route[1]:
|
| > _Israel is doing the opposite of ensuring aid can be
| delivered to Palestinians in need. For example, a U.N. memo
| recently obtained by the Washington Post concluded that the
| armed gangs looting aid convoys could be "benefiting from a
| passive if not active benevolence" and "protection" from
| Israel's military, and that a gang leader had a military-like
| compound in an area "restricted, controlled and patrolled" by
| the Israeli military.
|
| The gangs operate in areas under Israeli control, often
| within eyeshot of Israeli forces. When convoys are looted,
| Israeli forces watch and do nothing, even when aid workers
| request assistance. Israeli forces refer to one area about a
| kilometer from its Kerem Shalom border checkpoint as "the
| looting zone." The IDF-designated looting zone might be the
| only place in Gaza that Israeli forces won't shoot an armed
| Palestinian._
|
| But there was still at least some benefit of the doubt that
| the armed gangs were just some ordinary criminals exploiting
| the situation. Claims that the gangs themselves were
| operating under Israeli orders were conspiracy theories.
|
| Netanyahu now confirmed those theories as reality.
|
| [1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/gaza-aid/
| aaomidi wrote:
| > To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists
| in general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are
| connected to ISIS?
|
| Comments like this coming from an audience currently not
| being genocided is going to haunt our history forever.
| lukan wrote:
| Can you get a bit more specific here?
|
| Because it kind of reads like an attack towards me for not
| caring about genocide. If you are curious about my point of
| view, it is that both Hamas and Israeli leadership belongs
| in prison and the US and EU should stop supporting them
| immediately. But that doesn't mean I support anyone who
| wants to erease Israel. Do you support Hamas?
| Fraterkes wrote:
| This is an article about idf warcrimes, I think the
| comment you are responding to is just pointing out that
| you are immediately pivotting to condemning Hamas
| navane wrote:
| But the comment he's responding to already talks
| primerely about Hamas, it's not he who switched the topic
| from IDFs horrors to Hamas crimes.
|
| > I guess the Israeli government's original plan to arm
| and support drug gangs and literally ISIS
| (euphemistically called 'clans') as "aid security" wasn't
| working out? Especially after it was revealed said
| "security" was stealing and reselling the food aid under
| the protection of IDF while the Israeli govt. and media
| blamed the looting on Hamas.
|
| To which he responded his opinions about drug and faith
| dealers.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Asking if I support Hamas makes this unworthy of a
| response.
| lukan wrote:
| You could just state "no", if you don't, then I would
| have apologized.
|
| But you gave a response, but avoided the question.
| Together with your comment history and wording I do
| conclude now that you do.
| freen wrote:
| Well, Israel could have worked with the UN... it's not the
| like choices are ONLY Hamas or Drug Dealers.
|
| Unless, of course, delivering aid is not actually your
| intent.
| niyyou wrote:
| Sourced articles like these are good and further proof that
| Israel is a psychopathic state and society. But what's odd is
| to depict is as "surprising" or even shocking when the same
| state has been carpet bombing civilian, including women and
| children for 16 months straight, causing what is estimated at
| 300 000 deaths, committing every single atrocity or
| infringement to the international law possible, including
| targeting medics, journalists, using starvation as a weapon of
| war, bragging on it on social media, having politicians incite
| to eradicate the remaining part of the Gaza population, and I
| could go on and on with nameless atrocities. So just to put
| things in perspective, this article depicts a horrible
| incident, but it is entirely in line with the rest of the
| Israeli policy, and unfortunately pales in comparison with the
| ongoing large-scale massacre.
| locallost wrote:
| The guidelines of HN, to be kind and curious in the comments, are
| difficult to follow in this case. Outrage doesn't bring anything
| either, but a polite and curious discussion is impossible. The
| lack of reflection in the western world on this issue is
| seriously disturbing.
| dang wrote:
| I hear you and I agree that there are topics which conventional
| politeness cannot respond to adequately, and that this is one
| of those topics.
|
| If you take those words "kind" and "curious" in a large sense--
| larger than usual--I think there's enough room there to talk
| about even this topic without breaking the guidelines.
|
| _How_ to do this? That is something we have to work out
| together. You 're right that it's difficult.
|
| From a moderation point of view, I can tell you that just
| avoiding garden-variety flamewar and internet tropes already
| gets us a lot of the way there. You'd be surprised at how many
| users who think they're taking a grand moral stand against
| conventional politeness are simply repeating those.
| Conventional _im_ politeness isn't any answer either.
| TheGuyWhoCodes wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| I don't agree that it's off topic, nor that HN would be
| better if we suppressed it and acted like this isn't
| happening. We're trying for a global optimum*, and the most
| important part of that is not to settle for local optima,
| such as not discussing difficult things.
|
| I've posted about this quite a bit, since it inevitably
| comes up every time this topic appears on HN's front page.
| Here's another part of the current thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403458.
|
| * https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| sor...
| TheGuyWhoCodes wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Funnily enough I just finished responding to someone who
| makes the opposite complaint about us:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403907. Notice
| that word "always", which both of you use. Interesting,
| no?
|
| People with strong passions on a topic always feel like
| the moderators are against them. (As you see, I'm not
| immune to "always" perceptions either!)
|
| I wish we could do something about that--I don't enjoy
| having so many people, from all sides of every divisive
| topic, feeling like we're against them when we're not.
| However, after years of observing this and thinking about
| it, I came to the conclusion that it's inevitable. The
| cognitive bias underlying it is just ironclad. We all
| share this bias, which is why your complaint and the
| complaint of someone on the opposite side are basically
| the same.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| It's true that HN has hosted several major threads about
| Israel/Gaza, but it's also true that many (perhaps a
| hundred times as many) submissions on the topic have
| ended up flagged and we haven't turned off the flags. I
| don't see an "always" in there.
|
| As for Saturdays--that factor is so far from affecting
| how we moderate HN that I had to puzzle for a bit over
| what you might mean. Nor does this discussion strike me
| as one-sided. People wouldn't be disagreeing with each
| other if it were.
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| You do good work Dang. I'd love to buy you a beer
| sometime.
| edanm wrote:
| That's a pretty serious accusation, and I don't think you
| can actually back that up with anything.
|
| Online, pretty much any time Israel is discussed, the
| majority of commenters (or articles) are anti-Israel.
| Regardless of why you think that is, it's just a fact.
| You can't blame dang for that.
| locallost wrote:
| Thanks. I was not critical, especially not of the moderation,
| just tried to sum up what I think about it, and other than
| meaningless outrage there was nothing there. And yet there is
| no point in that because that's just letting off steam. I
| don't think it should be removed either.
| conartist6 wrote:
| This is a description of blackest evil.
|
| Anyone who knows they are raising an assault rifle to a crowd of
| civilians and pulls the trigger is a mass murderer and a
| psychopath
| ivanstame wrote:
| Poor people :(
| alluro2 wrote:
| I visited Israel for a sports seminar some ~10 years ago and met
| many nice people. I felt sympathetic to their reality of living
| in an ever-hostile environment from all sides, and struggle to
| keep their place in the world safe. I admired their resilience
| and strength.
|
| When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested
| against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there
| is a semblance of an excuse for glimpses of abhorrence being
| reported - "it's a small number of people in power, not the
| Israeli nation doing it, and also there are always 2 sides to the
| story".
|
| Since then, there have been unfathomable horrors and crimes
| against humanity done from the Israel side, with extreme
| intensity and one-sidedness, and it's now been going for so long.
| I can find no excuse of any kind anymore, for what has been and
| is being done in Gaza. I don't think any normal person could. The
| weight of these things, in my mind at least, is such that if the
| Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their
| human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now, in
| whatever way needed. They didn't... It's sad that people who have
| suffered so much as well, let themselves become the villains to
| this depth and extent.
| xg15 wrote:
| I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our
| states as well - the US and the EU states (especially Germany,
| sadly).
|
| As horrible as the Israeli mindset is, their subjective
| viewpoint is at least somewhat relatable: An ordinary Israeli
| citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns
| that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead
| - and will with very high likelihood experience terror attacks
| themselves. That this upbringing doesn't exactly make you want
| to engage with the other side is psychologically
| understandable.
|
| (I'm imaging this as the universal experience of all Jewish
| Israelis, religious or secular, left or right. I'm excluding
| the religious and Zionist-ideological angles here, because
| those are a whole different matter once again)
|
| What I absolutely cannot understand is the behavior of our
| states. We're pretending to be neutral mediators who want
| nothing more than to end the conflict, yet in reality, we're
| doing everything to keep the conflict going. We're fully
| subscribed to Zionist narrative of an exclusive Israeli right
| to the land (the justifications ranging from ostensibly
| antifascist to openly religious) and we're even throwing our
| own values about universal human rights and national
| sovereignty under the bus to follow the narrative.
|
| If the messianic and dehumanizing tendencies of Israelis are
| answered by nothing else than full support and encouragement of
| their allies, I don't find it exactly surprising that they will
| grow.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I dont disagree with anything you said, but isn't that the
| role of elected leaders ? Actually making the difficult
| decisions that may be unpopular, but necessary ?
|
| Or is it the leader class in most western countries have no
| sense of duty , are effectively cowards, and are in it just
| to have a profitable, white-collar career ?
| hidingfearful wrote:
| > Or is it the leader class in most western countries have
| no sense of duty , are effectively cowards, and are in it
| just to have a profitable, white-collar career ?
|
| They are cowards who are just in it to enrich themselves by
| bribery, theft, and extortion.
|
| You are looking in the right direction and not seeing just
| how far our society has gone.
| rixed wrote:
| And they may even find it comforting that it's OK to bomb
| innocent civilians for years because that's the only
| solution they can think of to deal with their own
| dissatisfied populace ultimately, when things will
| predictably get worse in Europe as well...?
|
| It's not Russia or terrorism they are afraid of.
| awkwardpotato wrote:
| > Actually making the difficult decisions that may be
| unpopular, but necessary ?
|
| What is the unpopular, necessary decision? GP is commenting
| on the US/EUs continual campaigns to arm and fund Israel's
| efforts in Gaza without pushback. I don't wish to
| misinterpret you, but this read to me, that funding/aiding
| human rights violations and genocide in Gaza is a
| "necessary" act.
| dmix wrote:
| It's a bunch of >60yr old western leaders who had 40yrs of
| seeing violence and terrorism in Israel and Palestine, and
| every couple years a naive western leader announces they
| want to fix it, while nothing changes.
|
| People are just numb to the whole area.
|
| The most difficult part is the fact Israel is wealthy and
| aggressive while (both) Palestine government has been the
| definition of dysfunction and tribalism for decades, even
| during peace times. Diplomatic solutions have became harder
| and harder since the 90s.
|
| You can read the history the political bodies in West Bank
| and even they seem to not care to fix anything either. They
| have their own leadership issues (like never electing new
| leaders).
|
| There's a major gap between a western savior wanting
| something bad to stop and actually going there and
| accomplishing something.
| xg15 wrote:
| That's a good question. I know, in Germany, saying - let
| alone _doing_ - anything critical of Israel as a public
| figure has effectively been a taboo. The justification had
| always been the Holocaust and the perpetual guilt of
| Germany towards the Jewish people arising from it.
|
| For a long time, that made some sense - it's starting to
| shift into quite horrific territory though, if leaders and
| communities interpret this obligation as some sort of
| absolute fealty towards the Israeli government, at the
| exclusion of everything else - even if that government
| _itself_ is repeating the path of Nazi Germany. Yet this
| seems to be how a lot of German politicians interpret it.
|
| I found the distinction exemplified in the "Never again" vs
| "Never again for anyone" slogans.
|
| I don't understand what exactly is going on in the US, but
| there seems to have been a similar taboo, though maybe
| stemming from different sources (like that Evangelical end-
| of-days prophecy that sees Israel literally as part of a
| divine plan that trumps everything else).
|
| I find it notable that part of Trump's voter support in the
| election were actually pro-Palestinian groups - because
| they saw Trump as the only alternative to a complicit
| Harris administration. Of course, Trump turned out to be
| even more complicit and openly embracing the Evangelical
| narrative.
|
| So as far as US voters were concerned, there was no pro-
| Palestinian or even neutral options to vote for. There was
| just secular pro-Israel and religious pro-Israel. (Well,
| there was also Jill Stein, but she had no realistic chance
| of winning)
|
| Of course there are other voices saying that all those
| justifications - Holocaust, biblical prophecy, etc - are
| just show and the real reason for the unconditional support
| is just ordinary geopolitics. The image of Israel as the
| "unsinkable aircraft carrier" that guarantees US dominance
| in the region.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Israel and people of Jewish heritage has a lot of soft-power
| in the west. And the anti-terrorism rhetoric that Israeli's
| using to sell this has has previously been deployed by the
| west to cover up it's own crimes.
| yoavm wrote:
| I would argue that the Muslim world has gained quite some
| political power in the West, perhaps as a simple result of
| immigration. The EU for example seem to have about 50 times
| more Muslims than Jews.
|
| Anti-terrorism rhetorics has indeed previously led to
| terrible crimes, but I wouldn't suppose that's a reason to
| support pro-terrorism rhetorics. It's probably best to look
| at the content instead of the type of rhetorics.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| You're not making sense my friend. The recent Muslim
| immigrants have nothing to do with soft power and I don't
| see how that's relevant to this context. Are you saying
| that it counters the influence that Israel has?
|
| And if we're talking about terrorism, IDF and Mossad are
| very much known to deploy terror tactics across a lot of
| their historical engagements. The definition of the word
| doesn't hinge on designation by a Western organization.
| And the vast majority of "pro-palestine" people in the
| world are not Iran proxies and secret anti-semites.
| They're actually, for the most part, young people that
| are working from a place of empathy and horror. The most
| blatant and harmful propganda in this whole mess is the
| attempt to designate pro-palestine protestors anti-
| semites and secretly in support of Iran and Hamas
| policies. What a terrible cheapening of the word. Point
| is, the ones using the most pro-terror rhetoric are those
| trying to defend the IDF right now.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >The most blatant and harmful propganda in this whole
| mess is the attempt to designate pro-palestine protestors
| anti-semites and secretly in support of Iran and Hamas
| policies
|
| Propaganda? I am not very familiar with the details and
| frankly I don't really care, but at the two pro-
| Palestinian rallies that I saw were used "From the river
| to the sea" slogans, and like all protesters were okay
| with that.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Different words/phrases have different meanings to
| different groups/over time.
|
| To Zionists, Zionism means that Jews have the right to
| have a homeland, free of persecution. To non-Zionists, it
| means that Zionists think that they have the right to a
| _specific_ area of land (Israel) and that that land is
| their god-given right, and that they are free to use
| violence to obtain it. To a secular person, the idea of
| someone having a "god-given" right to a piece of land is
| insanity.
|
| "From the river to the sea" has been used to mean
| "Palestinians will be free everywhere" and also "the Jews
| that are violently occupying Palestine will be killed
| from the river to the sea".
|
| I can't speak for specific protestors you encountered,
| but the majority of people I know that are anti-Israel
| don't want "all Jews to die" or even any of them. They
| just want the genocide to stop, for people to stop dying.
| It's really that simple. Protestors are protesting
| violence.
| closewith wrote:
| > Anti-terrorism rhetorics has indeed previously led to
| terrible crimes, but I wouldn't suppose that's a reason
| to support pro-terrorism rhetorics
|
| Opposing genocide is not supporting terrorism. Labelling
| support for basic human rights as being pro-terrorism is,
| well, part of the genocide.
| yoavm wrote:
| What are you even commenting on? Did I (or anyone?) say
| that opposing genocide is supporting terrorism? Did I say
| that human rights are pro-terrorism?
|
| The parent comment was dismissing anti-terrorism
| rhetorics because previously they were used to committing
| crimes. That sounds illogical to me, and that's what I
| was commenting on.
| ajsiskababa wrote:
| What evidence of this do you see? Non Jewish natural born
| Americans also outnumber Jews in America, yet I don't see
| any immigrant students getting deported for criticizing
| Americans.
|
| Jews have disproportionate levels of soft power in the
| US. Israel receives billions in support every year. Anti
| Muslim propaganda is pushed out every year in Hollywood.
| The medias coverage of Gaza is essentially one big lie by
| omission. Many states pass laws aimed to deter criticism
| of Israel.
|
| I don't see any other group in America that receives this
| level of support.
| yoavm wrote:
| I thought I wrote pretty clearly what evidence I have:
| the EU has about 50 times more Muslims than Jews. That
| translates into political power in democratic societies.
|
| I'm not an expert on US politics and the reasoning for
| why the US supports Israel. I do however think that it's
| sensible to see Israel, with its relatively free
| elections, women rights, entrepreneurship etc as a more
| natural ally to the US than other countries in the Middle
| East, regardless of the "soft-power" you're referring to.
| The fact that some of its enemies also threaten the US
| probably plays a role too.
| lottin wrote:
| What does it even mean 'to want nothing more than to end the
| conflict'? As far as I can tell it doesn't mean anything.
| Everybody wants the conflict to end, including the Israelis
| and the Palestinians. They just want it to end differently,
| of course.
| xg15 wrote:
| In theory, we want to end it through the Two-State Solution
| (though even what this means is vague - certainty not the
| borders of 1967 that Palestinians and Arabs are demanding)
|
| But yeah, in practice, we seem to want it to end with full
| Israeli dominance, and the Palestinians either emigrating
| to Egypt and Jordan or vanishing into thin air, I suppose.
| mjevans wrote:
| I'd like better news coverage of that:
|
| What exactly ARE the goals / demands of every side. Both
| what they say in public, and what's generally accepted as
| the rational real goals each side requests / demands /
| etc via peace talks as well as through violence.
|
| The breakdown could even focus on factions within the
| nebulous term of 'sides'. An average citizen is likely to
| have looser criteria than a government / terrorist.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The problem with enunciating real positions to domestic
| audiences are that the extremists on both sides will
| literally murder anyone who compromises.
|
| Let's not forget Israel's domestic orthodox/right-wing
| Jewish terrorism and Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
|
| Ergo, there's even more incentive for leaders to
| continually espouse positions they know will never
| happen, but which play well at home.
|
| As a violence in poli sci professor of mine once quipped,
| this is a 'the only solution is killing the grandmothers'
| conflict. Because generational narratives of
| victimization are so ingrained in large parts of both
| societies that there is no room for compromise.
|
| Silence extremist voices forcefully, wait a generation,
| and then there might be a path to peace. :(
| dh2022 wrote:
| Who will provide the force to silence these extremist
| voices?
|
| Maybe there are some parallels in this situation and late
| 1800's-mid 1900's Western Europe. The civil war on the
| European continent between Germanic states on one hand
| and French/British ended when two powerful outsiders (US
| and Soviet Russia) invaded and split the continent.
| During this occupation west Europeans nations learned how
| to live with themselves and to atone for their mistakes
| and to not repeat these mistakes. But they only learned
| this because they were under military occupation.
|
| This scenario will most likely not happen in the Middle
| East and so I think there will not be peace there for
| generations.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The greatest chance for this was probably the US-Arab
| world, but the Shia/Sunni sectarian-political feudalism
| made that a non-starter, especially in the context of the
| Cold War.
|
| As a colleague from Bahrain once quipped, 'the countries
| of the Arab world love to use Palestinians as propaganda
| for domestic purposes, but none of them actually give
| enough of a shit to make hard choices to solve the
| problem.'
| jfengel wrote:
| Hamas' explicit goal is "from the river to the sea". If
| there is an alternative that they are willing to settle
| for, nobody knows what it is.
|
| The individual Gazans almost certainly have one in mind,
| likely some variant of the two state solution. But Hamas
| is in charge, and there is nobody else to talk to about
| it. Ordinary Gazans don't much like Hamas but they are
| the only thing standing between them and Israel, who as
| you know is attacking with impunity.
|
| Israel's nominal goal is to remove Hamas and engage such
| a negotiation, though there is significant doubt that
| this tactic is going to lead there. And they know that.
|
| Israelis are roughly equally divided on what they want.
| About half want to wipe out Gaza and have control of (but
| not responsibility for) the West Bank. They are the ones
| in government.
|
| The other half is much more amenable to a two state
| solution, but they are extremely skeptical of finding it.
| Long before the October 7 attacks, Israelis routinely
| have to shelter from rocket attacks. We hear little about
| them because they are largely ineffective, but it does
| not give Israelis a lot of confidence in any kind of
| negotiated settlement. That side is also happy to have
| Gaza walled off.
|
| And all of these sides are backed by powerful outside
| forces for whom the conflict itself is their goal.
|
| That is an extremely high level breakdown, as neutral as
| I can be.
| avip wrote:
| Here's the coverage you've asked (opinions my own, I do
| not pretend to rep. anyone)
|
| Israel stated goals of war:
|
| 1. Return the hostages
|
| 2. Remove Hamas regime from Gaza
|
| 3. (arguably done) bring north-Israel communities safely
| back home
|
| Unstated goals:
|
| 1. Open Egypt-Gaza border. This had failed.
|
| 2. Create safe zone on the Gaza-Israeli border. This is
| mostly done in practice. This goal cannot be stated
| (though it'll save many lives)
|
| Hamas goals:
|
| Read Hamas chapter, or see interviews with captured Hamas
| militants post 7/10 attack (if you believe it's not
| scripted)
|
| Gazan who are not part of Hamas regime goals: survive
| realo wrote:
| Hum... when I look at pictures of the very thorough
| destruction in Gaza (hospitals, civilians etc) it would
| seem that the israelis think "Remove Hamas" actually
| means kill everyone one in Gaza.
|
| If not a genocide, at the very least an ethnocide.
|
| Next step: Riviera Gaza!
| coryrc wrote:
| Germany surrendered, so we stopped bombing Dresden. Has
| the government, Hamas, surrendered?
| realo wrote:
| Ah ... I understand your point.
|
| All those jew death camps in Gaza must be closed down,
| for sure.
|
| All those Gaza tanks and those Gaza fighter jets must be
| taken down.
|
| And don't forget the Gaza navy patrolling the sea,
| preventing the israelis from fishing for their
| subsistence.
|
| Totally agree with you.
|
| Now... back to reality...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| It's absolutely the case that Hamas hasn't sued for peace
| with unconditional surrender. (Or recognised that the
| hostages confer leverage on Israel, not themselves.) Both
| Hamas and Israel remain belligerents in this conflict
| until one of them withdraws or surrenders, that's just
| how war works.
|
| There are a lot of atrocities being committed in this
| conflict. But bombing a school that was used as a missile
| launch site really isn't one of them.
| mousethatroared wrote:
| Dresden made the Germans surrender? We're really going
| with that now? Not the Soviets taking Berlin and Hitler
| blowing his brains out lest they capture him?
|
| Also, the Germans sent untrained 15 year olds to fight
| Soviet tanks. That's as close to total battlefield defeat
| as has ever happened in history.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Germany surrendered, so we stopped bombing Dresden.
|
| And no British person was pubished as war criminal for
| the war crime of attacking Dresden. :-(
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| For the record, the firebombing of Dresden was
| indefensible.
|
| I say this as someone whose family endured 6 years of
| Nazi German and Soviet crimes, including genocide,
| violence, rape, large scale looting and destruction of
| cultural heritage, and mass destruction of cities (85% of
| Warsaw alone was reduced to rubble, intentionally and
| systematically).
|
| Why do I mention that? I mention that to underscore that
| just war is not utilitarian. You cannot justify Dresden
| or Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It doesn't mean you can't take
| strong measures, or that circumstances don't make a
| difference, only that the circumstances did not morally
| justify these acts. And it seems that the behavior of the
| Allies in Dresden and Hiroshima serve as precedent that
| is used to justify crimes like the leveling of Gaza and
| treating its civilians like cattle.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Hamas bobby trapped a lot of homes. The way to clear them
| is small explosives.
|
| It's hamas thats destroying gaza, not israel.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| They think Palestinian = Hamas
| archagon wrote:
| Unstated goal #1 for Netanyahu: avoid prison at any cost.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Another unstated goal: punitively deter future attacks.
| avip wrote:
| 100%. Thanks for mentioning that.
| mousethatroared wrote:
| Stated goal (by Ben Givir, Smoltrich and, yes, Bibi
| himself): genocide of Gaza.
|
| Half the cabinet of the current Israeli government has
| made public statements to the effect of wanting to starve
| everyone or kill all the kids.
|
| We've seen the videos and, with !gt, we can read the
| translations.
| rurp wrote:
| Unfortunately this Israeli government has consisently
| refused to articulate any sort of positive goal.
| Netanyahu is only publicly against things. He is adamant
| about preventing a Palestinian state and crippling Iran,
| but seems to have no plan for what _should_ happen in
| Palestine, hence the seemingly endless horrible situation
| there.
| pydry wrote:
| In precisely the same way that the Nazis wanted their
| conflict to end with Jews emigrating to Africa
| (Madagascar according to their original plan) or
| vanishing into thin air.
| judahmeek wrote:
| At this point, I think the Two-State Solution has proven
| to be incredibly naive.
|
| As long as there are outside forces, such as Iran,
| willing to embed & fund militants among the Gazan
| population, the -only- practical solution towards peace
| is assimilation: have Gazans broken up & spread out
| through Israel until law enforcement can be practically
| achieved.
|
| Now assimilation sucks & will likely result in all sorts
| of social injustice, but I consider it a better
| alternative to the current ethnic cleansing.
|
| EDIT: @casspipe suggested the option of subsidized
| resettlement and I agree that is another option that
| should be explored.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Even assimilation seems hard at this point. If I were a
| gazan I'd ask the international community to have Israel
| buy me decent housing somewhere safe in an arab speaking
| country. Like, I get it you are stronger and don't want
| me here but give me.somewhere decent to go. I often
| wonder what are the options for Palestinians and
| especially gazans who do want to get out of there.
| judahmeek wrote:
| Assimilation definitely would be a hard option.
|
| I agree that subsidized resettlement should be another
| option explored by middle east nations.
| avip wrote:
| Why would any Arab-speaking country accept 2M Palestinian
| refugees?
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| There are not necessarily Arab countries that want to
| take on millions of Palestinian refugees. There is a
| broader issue that what you suggest is not considered
| good for the Palestinian cause. I'll give an example.
| UNRWA uses a specific definition for Palestinian refugees
| that differs from the general refugee definition used by
| UNHCR. They define Palestinian refugees as "persons whose
| normal place of residence was Palestine during the period
| 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and
| means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict".
| This status also extends to their descendants. This means
| children and grandchildren of the original 1948 refugees
| maintain refugee status even if born outside Palestine.
| When you think about it, this is kind of the opposite of
| what you suggested. It creates a massive class of legal
| Palestinians who live in and are citizens of other
| countries (particularly Jordan), but are ostensibly
| waiting for their opportunity to return (or receive some
| other "durable solution" such as compensation).
|
| In general, Arab states and Palestinian leadership argue
| that naturalizing refugees would undermine their right to
| return to their original homes. You can interpret this
| cynically: because many Arab states are not too friendly
| with Israel, having a massive class of refugees putting
| political pressure on them could be advantageous, and is
| probably one of the only ways to "defeat" Israel as a
| jewish state (because if all of those refugees had the
| right to live in Israel, jews might become a minority.)
| But it is true that removing refugee status without a
| just solution would erase Palestinian claims and rights
| under international law.
| klipt wrote:
| It's interesting to compare that treatment to the Mizrahi
| Jews who fled persecution in Arab states after 1948 and
| many settled in Israel. They're not refugees anymore. The
| Arab states stole tons of property from Mizrahi Jews
| (adding up to multiple times the size of Israel) but
| nobody is demanding that the Arab states pay reparations
| to Mizrahi Jews as a condition for peace. Meanwhile those
| same Arab states radicalize their populace against Israel
| by calling Israelis "land thieves" - the hypocrisy is
| quite amazing considering many of those Israelis
| literally had their grandparents' land stolen by those
| same Arab states.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Maybe the Mizrahi Jews can get their property back if
| they return the land they stole?
|
| Seriously though, if you look back far enough, all land
| is stolen. I think it's more prudent to focus on the
| present day.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| That's not quite fair. The Mizrahi Jews the GP is
| referring to were kicked out of the country they were
| born in, and had nowhere else to go but Israel, the land
| for which was already "stolen" when the Mizrahi Jews got
| there. (Obviously settlements are ongoing so you can say
| that land theft is continuing to happen. If that's what
| you meant, ignore me.)
| klipt wrote:
| > If I were a gazan I'd ask the international community
| to have Israel buy me decent housing somewhere safe in an
| arab speaking country.
|
| The Arab states seized properties from Mizrahi Jews
| fleeing to Israel decades ago, land that adds up to
| multiple times the size of Israel. They have plenty of
| space to resettle refugees without asking Israel to "buy"
| their own stolen land back!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'd ask the international community to have Israel
| buy me decent housing somewhere safe in an arab speaking
| country_
|
| The degree to which France and the UK have dodged the
| question of reparations in this debate is frankly
| surprising to me.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Nobody wants palestinian population. Egypt built a wall
| for a reason.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Israel's neighbours are absolutely unwilling to take
| large numbers of Palestinians, for reasons that seem
| perfectly fair.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_S
| out...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_insurgency#Gaza_Strip
| _sp...
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| I've done the math, and if the US had given every
| Palestinian $100,000 to move elsewhere (surely enough to
| relocate) they could have forcefully relocated every
| single Palestinian without killing them all. And they
| would have spent less money than they have on bombs and
| stuff for Israel.
|
| Still a dick move, but much less so than wiping out an
| entire group of people.
| edanm wrote:
| > But yeah, in practice, we seem to want it to end with
| full Israeli dominance, and the Palestinians either
| emigrating to Egypt and Jordan or vanishing into thin
| air, I suppose.
|
| No, the majority of the West strongly wants a two-state
| solution (on the 1967 border, roughly). So did many
| Israelis, who voted people into office intent on
| achieving that goal many times.
|
| The problem is, Israel and Palestine never managed to
| sign an agreement leading to a two-state solution. And in
| parallel to the peace process, some Palestinians launched
| the second intifada, a terror campaign which killed many
| hundreds of Israelis. This eventually lead most Israelis
| to think that a two-state solution is impossible.
| dizlexic wrote:
| Not to mention that all the Palestinian borders are made
| up, and they've actively disagreed with them as defined
| by intermediaries every time.
| maeil wrote:
| I'm Swedish. Since I was a child, for decades, I was taught
| and never questioned the idea that Germany had learnt from
| their history, in the most admirable way. That it was really
| ingrained into the German culture to never let anything like
| the holocaust happen again. That the education system there
| was very good in really making people understand why it
| happened, what went wrong, and how to make sure there would
| be no second one.
|
| In early 2024, I was chatting with a German colleague of
| mine. Great guy, politically we were the most aligned out of
| anyone in our team. The genocide in Gaza was already well
| under way, so the topic came up. He told me, as if it was
| incredibly obvious "Well of course as Germany we couldn't
| possibly say anything about Gaza, given our history." For the
| rest of my life I will remember exactly that moment, where we
| were stood, the scene, because it came as a shock; this
| belief that I'd had since childhood turned out to be entirely
| wrong. It was the exact opposite - Germany had learnt
| nothing, in fact they'd learnt even _less_ than the countries
| they had occupied. It was all a complete ruse, and I really
| lost all respect I had for how Germany has dealt with it all.
| A country like Japan at least doesn 't even pretend to have
| learnt anything, and I'm not convinced that's the worse
| option.
|
| I should've known the second news started flowing out of
| Germany such as "Award ceremony set to honor novel by
| Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled "due
| to the war in Israel,", along with stuff like designating
| B.D.S as "antisemitic" but I wanted to believe that was just
| a tiny minority of ignorant people.
|
| Yes, I know that now "the narrative inside Germany has been
| turning around" but imo it's far too late, and can't possibly
| be sincere, being entirely fuelled by external pressure
| rather than any kind of actual realization.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _" the narrative inside Germany has been turning around"_
|
| Fully agreeing with your post - and also, it's not. Maybe
| for parts of the population (though even there, many are
| extremely conflicted) but definitely not for the current
| (conservative) leadership. What worries them is that they
| find the country increasingly isolated and there is a
| growing risk they could become personally liable - this
| forces them to make some concerned noises if the atrocities
| become undeniable.
|
| But they never stopped practically supporting Israel
| wherever they can, be it with military aid or preventing EU
| actions that might put pressure on it. They will also snap
| back into the unequivocally pro-Israel narrative as soon as
| they can get away with it.
| wuschel wrote:
| I would not extrapolate from the discourse with one German
| to a general statement of a heterogeneous population of
| ~80M people. There are many different opinions and
| positions in Germany - like in every country in the world.
| Please keep that in mind.
|
| Germany has indeed still have a 'vaccination'. How well it
| works, and whether it is not exploited by politics, is
| another matter.
|
| Lastly, the conflict in the Middle East is one of the most
| complex conflicts in recent human history - and there is no
| easy way out. That also applies to the situation in Gaza.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| No, there is nothing "complex" about Gaza - neither
| before nor after Oct 7.
|
| The late Michael Brooks shared a small thought experiment
| that might help elucidate this:
| https://youtu.be/7ebPj_FqM5Q
| VonGallifrey wrote:
| It's one thing to call the situation "nothing complex",
| but there was no solution in this clip.
|
| Usually when people call something complex they mean that
| the solution is complex.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| [flagged]
| VonGallifrey wrote:
| How exactly do you suggest that a country like Germany
| (since Germanys inaction was the topic of this thread)
| reach those goals? How does Germany end the blockade of
| Gaza? How does Germany end apartheid in the West Bank?
|
| Just because I can't do anything to improve the situation
| does not mean that I am in favour of the status quo. That
| does not make me evil either.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Are you seriously asking me this question, or is this an
| attempt at a rhetorical? And why are we shifting the
| goalposts once again?
|
| How do you think apartheid South Africa ended? How does
| any country pressure another?
|
| In a supposedly democratic nation like Germany, how would
| citizens pressure their government to stop supporting &
| providing diplomatic cover for another to commit a
| genocide & maintain apartheid?
| ath3nd wrote:
| > Just because I can't do anything to improve the
| situation does not mean that I am in favour of the status
| quo. That does not make me evil either.
|
| It does. The Germans who stood aside when the Nazis rose
| to power and the soldiers just "executing orders" were as
| much to blame for the rise of Hitler as the ones
| supporting it. Not taking a side against evil is taking
| evil's side. And you of all peoples should have learned
| from your history. Genocide is bad.
|
| > How does Germany end apartheid in the West Bank?
|
| By applying pressure on the international community to
| boycott Israel. Same way Germany is applying pressure on
| the international community to boycott Russia.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _idea that the injustice & domination should continue
| because there is no clear cut solution is pure evil_
|
| It's prioritisation. There are multiple horrible civil
| wars, rebellions and displacements happening around the
| world right now. Every person doesn't need to have a
| position on each one; there is an argument that's
| counterproductive. (Exhibit A: the Columbia protests.)
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Since you brought up the Columbia protests and general
| dissent inside the US: how many such conflicts and
| genocides are directly backed and propped up by the US?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how many such conflicts and genocides are directly
| backed and propped up by the US?_
|
| Fewer than you'd think [1]. (We send aid to Sudan and are
| practically uninvolved in Myanmar.)
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed
| _confli...
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Well, that's my point. This is the only major ongoing
| conflict where the US and major Western powers are
| virtually unconditionally backing the "bad guys".
|
| So it makes sense that there would be more attention and
| pushback on this one versus others.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Hmm, thank you. Hadn't considered that.
|
| (It's interesting because it requires disentangling anti-
| American sentiments from the equation.)
| dizlexic wrote:
| The idea that Isreal is occupying the west bank and or
| Gaza goes back to the 1967 6 day war and has jack all to
| do with Palestinian borders real or imaginary.
|
| Those lands were the property of Jordan and Egypt...
| Cyph0n wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Can you please stop posting flamewar comments? It's
| against the site guidelines because it destroys the
| curious conversation we're trying for. I know that topic
| is both important and activating, but that makes it more
| important, not less, to stick to the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| Instead, please make your substantive points
| thoughtfully, regardless of how wrong someone else is or
| you feel they are.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Was the problem with my comment the use of profanity? I
| did not insult the commenter, nor did I make any ad
| hominem attacks.
|
| I don't see any rules against profanity in general, or
| the use of profanity to respond to an argument. I also
| took the time to clarify why the argument is "bullshit".
| But maybe I am missing something.
| dang wrote:
| Not profanity per se, but if you lead with "Bullshit."
| then you're already well into aggressive flamewar mode.
|
| "You can try all you want to erase [etc.]" is a form of
| personal attack. You don't need that.
| MrJohz wrote:
| As someone living in Germany, that philosophy of "we
| don't have the right to intervene or say anything" is
| definitely embedded in the culture here. Obviously there
| are plenty of people who don't follow this philosophy,
| and there are left-wing pro-Palestine movements here as
| well, but overall there's a big cultural sense of
| obligation to Israel due to Germany's history.
|
| A friend of mine even ended up talking to a German
| diplomat in Israel, who said much the same thing: they
| could cosign other nations' condemnations of Israeli
| actions when they happened, but they couldn't condemn
| Israeli actions unilaterally. Obviously that was just his
| opinion and not an official viewpoint of the German
| government, but I found it fascinating that Germany still
| felt this sense of needing to make things right to Israel
| specifically.
| anton-c wrote:
| I am interested to know why you call out Japan as learning
| nothing. Obviously modern Japan has an excellent reputation
| and is not known as a warring nation( "no military" but ofc
| they have the JDF) so I'm guessing there's something deeper
| I don't know. Genuinely curious.
| keutoi wrote:
| There is some denial about the crimes committed by
| Imperial Japan.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre_denial htt
| ps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gb94m1/why_
| ...
| soraminazuki wrote:
| That's not representative of the Japanese public opinion
| at all, so I fail to see how it supports the view that
| the entire country "hasn't learned anything at all."
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| What is the average level of knowledge around the history
| of imperial Japan. Is that period covered thoroughly in
| school?
|
| I was under the impression that Japanese people don't so
| much deny war crimes, as they just don't talk/learn about
| the uglier parts of what happened during the first half
| of the 20th century. Is the Rape of Nanking a well known
| event in Japan? Are the significant battles and general
| tactics of the war(s) talked about? Do they talk about
| the Japanese Army's general treatment of foreign
| civilians?
|
| I guess, what I'm wondering is if I asked the average
| person on the street these questions, would they know at
| all what I'm talking about? Would they have the knowledge
| to talk about it in more detail?
|
| Is this like in the US where most people have no idea
| about American intervention in Cuba, and the rest of the
| meddling that the US was involved in in Latin America?
| anton-c wrote:
| That is awful, I see.
| Ray20 wrote:
| >As part of a lesson, they were banned having an army
| >They have powerful army anyway >Millions of Koreans live
| in constant fear of the power and brutality of their army
|
| Japan obviously learn nothing.
| anton-c wrote:
| I've been to SK numerous times. The older people dislike
| Japan A LOT. But their biggest base is a US one. I've
| never heard fear of the JDF. They have another more
| problematic neighbor.
|
| The United States - who made the constitution that banned
| the military - does exercises with and supports the JDF.
| Idk if that fits unconstitutional anymore.
|
| Their denial of horrid events and their attempts to
| suppress the fact that comfort women happened is
| undeniably awful though and shows many did not learn.
| throw627004 wrote:
| As a German, I think you should cut your colleague some
| slack.
|
| There's 8 billion people in the world who aren't German. If
| there's one topic that Germans don't chip in on, it won't
| move the needle.
|
| Whatever we as Germans say on Israel/Palestine will be
| taken the wrong way by someone. Critical of Israel? Still
| an antisemite! Supportive of Israel? Pathological guilt!
|
| It super sucks, but I too will leave it to others to voice
| strong opinions in this matter. And there's no shortage of
| that.
| NohatCoder wrote:
| And so you leave your politicians to set the official
| German opinion of unconditional support for Israel.
| ath3nd wrote:
| > Whatever we as Germans say on Israel/Palestine will be
| taken the wrong way by someone. Critical of Israel? Still
| an antisemite! Supportive of Israel? Pathological guilt!
|
| The lesson here is not: "Jew always right", it's
| "Genocide always bad". If you don't have a stance, you
| are still helping Israel to do a genocide on the
| Palestinian people.
| holowoodman wrote:
| There is also an unspoken bit of realpolitik there:
| Israel is still an ally to Germany, Palestine isn't, Iran
| isn't, Hamas isn't, etc.
|
| So this is actually a super-nice position to be in, you
| can support your ally no matter what they do, while still
| looking contrite and morally superior by pulling the "we
| are Germany, we are not allowed to have a say in the
| matter" card.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Germany has learned to be critical of themselves, and not
| be critical of others. Especially the victims of Nazisim.
|
| That worked when Germany was occupied, or split in half, or
| broke.
|
| Now that a unified Germany is in a position of leadership,
| rethinking history in terms of absolute right and wrong is
| probably a good idea.
| ivape wrote:
| David Simon (creator of The Wire) once gave a lecture at a
| Jewish conference trying to make the case that Jews in
| America should be uniquely aligned with the plight of Black
| Americans in the inner cities. The case was that the Jews
| went through an experience during WW2 that makes them
| uniquely qualified to always align in solidarity against
| oppression, poverty, and general suffering.
|
| To be children of ethnic cleansing (obviously I'm
| describing the Holocaust lightly here) and still commit the
| same crime in Gaza is profound.
|
| It's a great point you bring up, that being, what _have_ we
| learned?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Jews in America are not the ones committing a genocide in
| Gaza. Quite a significant proportion of the American Jews
| are absolutely horrified.
|
| Can I ask why you think that American Jews are any more
| responsible for the crimes of Israel in Gaza than non-
| Jews, or Jews elsewhere in the world? Do you think that
| Judaism is a monolith, or that American Jews are the same
| as all Jews?
|
| I ask because blaming Jews elsewhere for the acts of
| Israel, and conflating all of Jewry with Israel is a
| common tactic of anti-Semitic movements. I can't tell if
| you are doing that intentionally, or if you have just
| made your point poorly.
|
| Assuming you are acting in good faith, you should look at
| the history of Black/Jewish relations in the civil rights
| eras. There was a disproportionate amount of support from
| American Jews (compared to the population at large)
| towards the civil rights movement.
|
| MLK himself was outspoken about the support from American
| Jews:
|
| "How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our
| Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the
| principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the
| form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible
| ways, and often at great personal sacrifice. Can we ever
| express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give
| moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent
| protest against segregation in that unhappy city? Need I
| remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi
| Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil
| rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who
| can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew
| Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of
| Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the
| contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the
| Negro's struggle for freedom--it has been so great."
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Agreed - living in New York City, I know quite a lot of
| Jews. Not a single one supports the genocide.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Of course you'll learn nothing when you're not allowed to
| question...
| watwut wrote:
| I do not think this simplification works. A lot of the
| conflict is about systematic attempts at expansion of Israel
| itself - that is what settlements are and always were.
| Removal and mistreatment of original population went hand in
| hand with that.
| avip wrote:
| Are we talking about the expansion out of Lebanon in 2000
| or the expansion out of Gaza in 2005?
| watwut wrote:
| We are talking about all settlements into territory that
| was not Israel's regardless of the year. The settlements
| like that are internationally illegal precisely because
| they are clear attempt to use civilian population as
| shields in a land takeover.
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| Speaking of Germany - Israel really weaponized the holocaust,
| in the sense that's absolutely impossible to criticize Israel
| without being accused of antisemitism. I actually think it
| got to the point it makes difficult fighting antisemitism
| because it's evident to any honest person that the accusation
| is a weapon now.
| basisword wrote:
| >> An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows
| nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the
| surrounding populations want them dead.
|
| You have to look at the other side too. Palestinian's are
| born knowing that Israeli's have taken lots of their land
| through violent force. And they want to take more of it. And
| while the Israeli's live in a well developed wealthy nation
| they are condemned to poverty.
|
| Consider the King David Hotel Bombing[1]. Israeli terrorists
| murdered nearly 100 people. In 2006 Netanyahu presided over
| the unveiling of a memorial plaque, alongside some of the
| terrorists involved in it, with the plaque specifically
| remembering the terrorist who died in the attack. So Israeli
| terrorism is fine, even worthy of praise.
|
| And while the Israelis may grow up scared that the
| Palestinian's want them dead, 10's of thousands of
| Palestinian children won't grow up at all.
|
| >> I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on
| our states as well
|
| I agree. It seems that all over Europe at least, the
| governments are largely going against public opinion on this
| issue. But it's not the first time we've seen this (Iraq
| being a recent example).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
| xg15 wrote:
| No question about that.
|
| I found it a remarkable detail that from the shore of Gaza,
| you see the port of and industrial zone of Ashdod, only a
| few kilometers away. It seems almost like a permanent
| reminder that the entire area is in fact well-developed -
| the wasteland only exists where they live.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| And in the US insurrectionists are pardoned. That's a
| striking parallel.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| > I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on
| our states as well - the US and the EU states (especially
| Germany, sadly).
|
| I understand that you are talking about the recent era, but I
| wonder if you could speak to the history of the creation of
| Israel, and the German perception of that. Is there any
| discussion about the European role in the creation of Israel?
| After the end of the war, it isn't as if there was a movement
| to return property and homes to European Jews. If anything,
| the powers in Europe after the war (and, in the case of
| Eichmann, pre war as well) saw Zionism as a solution for what
| to do with the Jews.
|
| Is there any sympathy or responsibility felt in European
| communities for essentially using Zionism as a solution?
| alfiopuglisi wrote:
| Nope. It's basically forgotten. At least, I haven't heard
| anyone talking about it, either in my circles or in the
| media.
| xg15 wrote:
| From my experience, the history of Israel as discussed in
| the media usually begins in 1948. A standard phrase is "The
| state was founded and immediately declared war at".
|
| Sometimes discussion goes back a bit further about how the
| area was a "League of Nations Mandatory Area" before, that
| was for some reason was administered by the British.
|
| That's usually it.
|
| An interesting detail is that the legitimacy of Israel here
| is usually explained with the UN (the Partition Plan
| resolutions and the accepted membership) - not with any
| kind of divine right. I think that's quite different from
| how (right wing) Israelis see the source of legitimacy
| themselves.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| That's a whole other fork of the story.
|
| I was basically getting at how does Europe see its role
| in the fact that a big part of what made Israel possible
| was the more or less complete displacement of European
| jewry during the war, and the complete lack of will to
| create a place in post-war europe for their own Jewish
| community.
|
| This perspective comes from my own family history where a
| few relatives managed to survive the war in Nazi custody,
| but then spent longer in Western European refugee camps
| postwar than they spent in the concentration and death
| camps during the war. The entire family ended up outside
| of Europe (USA and Israel) since it was the most viable
| path out of the camps.
|
| Basically the success of Zionism is due in no small part
| to the active support from Europe in the years after the
| war, and my question is, do Europeans see that in as
| self-interested terms as it can look. More succinctly,
| does the Western European community realize that creating
| Israel was a solution to the post-war "Jewish Problem"
| that conveniently did not require those nations to create
| a hospitable place for jewish communities within their
| own borders.
| xg15 wrote:
| That's a very good question, and thank you for sharing
| the experience of your family.
|
| I can't really say.
|
| From what I see here, there is not a lot of discussion in
| that area. (That was the first time I heard about those
| refugee camps, but that may just be me)
|
| From what I understand, the discussion for a long time
| was more about whether Jews would even _want_ to come
| back to.Germany, after all the other Germans did to them.
|
| German reflection on the Nazi period also happened in
| multiple stages. From what I know, the initial phase,
| right after the war, was quite inadequate. Yes, there
| were the Nuremberg Trials, but both Allies and Germans
| were interested in quickly getting back to some kind of
| "normal" and rebuilding the country - the US and the
| Soviets in particular in preparation for the imminent
| conflict between them. So a lot of Nazi personnel stayed
| in office.
|
| I believe, support of Israel in that time was seen as a
| sort of reparation that conveniently made it unnecessary
| to engage with the Nazi past on a deeper level. (I did
| wonder when learning more about the conflict recently,
| why the Allies didn't designate some are inside former
| Germany as a Jewish state - let's say the Rhineland.
| _That_ would have been entirely justified IMO. But of
| course the question of Israel was already settled at that
| time.)
|
| There was a sort of "second stage" a generation later,
| during the Civil Rights movement, where students forced a
| revisit of the Nazi past. I believe, a lot of the
| currently known details of the Holocaust are coming from
| that phase. But I think they didn't say a lot about
| Israel and just saw it as an emancipatory, left-wing
| project.
|
| Today, people here are enormously proud that Jewish
| communities exist again in Germany, though it's
| understood that it's still a lot less than before the
| war.
|
| It would be an interesting question how the sentiment of
| German leadership towards Jews was in the 50s and 60s.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| In case you are interested in the bigger picture, the
| camps were called Displaced Person camps in English. Most
| had closed by 1952, with the last one in Germany closing
| in 1957.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_persons_camps_in_
| pos...
| NohatCoder wrote:
| I think that part of history is largely forgotten. I
| don't think a lot of Europeans have much self-interest in
| mind when picking a side in this conflict today.
| klipt wrote:
| Well it's in their self interest to deny any culpability.
| That way older generations could say "Jews get out of
| Poland! Go back to Palestine!" And younger generations
| can say "Jews get out of Palestine! Go back to Poland!"
| Without acknowledging that taken together, these
| statements show they just don't want Jews to exist
| anywhere.
| f33d5173 wrote:
| And what if the jews set up shop in your living room?
| What would you say to that?
| klipt wrote:
| What if the Arab states stole property multiple times the
| size of Israel from Mizrahi Jews? Which they did.
|
| The Arab states clearly owe Israelis more reparations
| than the other way around.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| If a genocide survivor showed up on my doorstep with
| nowhere else to go, I hope that my reaction would be:
| Welcome fellow man. You must be desperate. How can I
| help.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows
| nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the
| surrounding populations want them dead - and will with very
| high likelihood experience terror attacks themselves. That
| this upbringing doesn't exactly make you want to engage with
| the other side is psychologically understandable.
|
| This "entirety of the surrounding population want them dead"
| language is both dehumanizing, false, and (perhaps not
| intended by you) genocidal.
|
| The "surrounding population" is not a monolith. I imagine
| only a very small minority of people want all Jewish Israelis
| dead. I do Palestinian liberation work with _many_ non-Jewish
| people from the middle east (I 'm Jewish) and have yet to
| meet a single one who wants me dead.
|
| They all want an end to Zionism.
|
| Some may want it replaced with an Islamic government (which
| at its best is not different from the ideal "Zionism" you may
| hear defended by liberal Zionists, and at its worst is no
| different from the Zionism instituted by the modern state of
| Israel today)
|
| Most want it replaced with a secular state where everyone has
| equal rights.
|
| If your intent was to explain the mindset of an "ordinary
| Israeli citizen" who supports Zionism, then I agree with you,
| but it's dangerous to say something like this without
| distinguishing why this is a flawed mindset which can only
| exist due to an extensive system of propaganda.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| > Most want it replaced with a secular state where everyone
| has equal rights.
|
| I believe that this is true of most of the people you've
| worked with. However, polling in the West Bank and Gaza
| finds that to be a fairly unpopular position. Quoting
| https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/what-
| do-... :
|
| > These numbers are not the same as popular support for a
| single state "from the river to the sea" with equal rights
| accorded to Arab and Jewish citizens, as in recent
| international proposals. In 2020 polls, only about 10
| percent of West Bank and Gazan respondents favored this
| option over either a Palestinian state or two states.
| Notably, a theological premise underpins the one-state
| preference: A majority of the Palestinian respondents
| believe that "eventually, the Palestinians will control
| almost all of Palestine, because God is on their side"--
| that is, not because Palestinian control will flow from
| demographic changes or from a joint arrangement with
| Israel.
|
| I agree with you that it's not accurate to say that the
| entirety of Jordan or Egypt want Israelis dead. However, if
| we're trading anecdote for anecdote: I know someone who
| grew up in Saudi, and he told me that when he was growing
| up it was completely normal to insult someone by calling
| them a jew (especially someone you perceive as being
| stingy, scammy, or reneging on a deal). He said it was so
| normalized that when he came to North America, he had an
| awkward adjustment period before he realized that was
| considered unacceptable here.
|
| Now, there's a big difference between calling someone a jew
| as an insult and wanting all jews dead, but I have no
| trouble believing that antisemitism is very common within
| the middle east. Don't forget that it wasn't so long ago
| that there was a mass exodus of jews from the Middle East
| and North Africa to Israel, which can only be explained by
| some degree of "push factor" pushing them away from those
| countries. So while "wants them dead" is probably an
| exaggeration, you have to empathize a bit with the fact
| that almost every other middle eastern country was quite
| hostile towards jews in the past 100 years, and there's not
| an especially good guarantee that they would not be hostile
| again.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows
| nothing else,
|
| They know perfectly well that their settlers are conducting
| daily pogroms against Palestinian villages in the West Bank,
| protected by their own army. They know perfectly well that
| thousands of Palestinians are detained for years without due
| process, trialled by military courts, kept in a state of
| apartheid.
|
| They just don't care.
| nopelynopington wrote:
| I think they meant, they are born into the situation and
| don't have an outsiders perspective, not that they are
| ignorant of what's happening
| throw310822 wrote:
| The situation is not static. The oppression of the
| Palestinians is active, progressive, and happens every
| day. This is not a state you're born in, but it is
| something you actively participate in or decide to
| ignore. Those who say "this is just the situation now"
| are disingenuous, as _new_ crimes by one side against the
| other are perpetrated every day.
| nopelynopington wrote:
| I agree. Dwelling on the past is pointless. All of this
| is new.
| 7sigma wrote:
| This point of view whitewashes a lot of the history. Israel has
| been doing horrible things since its founding to Palestinians,
| starting with the Nakba in 1948 which was an ethnic cleaning
| campaign to create an ethno state. Many massacres occurred like
| in Deir Yassin in 1948 and continued with other massacres like
| in Kahn Younis in 1956 where they lined up more than 200 men
| over 15 and executed them against the wall.
|
| With the continued persecution of Palestinians, whether its the
| illegal occupation of the west bank or the siege of Gaza which
| was essentially a concentration camp, that was "mowed" like
| grass every few years in terrorist bombing campaigns by Israel,
| its no surprise that organisations like Hamas, originally a
| humanitarian charity, exist.
|
| Israelis want peace through domination, just like the French in
| Algeria. Be aware that Jews are not native to Palestine, except
| those that had been living there before the state was founded.
| They are living as colonialists on stolen land, and are
| continually denying the native Palestinians the right to
| return, which is part of the definition ethnic cleansing.
|
| I say this as Jewish person originally born in Palestine (or
| Israel) and who had grandparents that survivide the Holocaust.
| Once I read about what really happened in 1948, that it was
| zionist terrorist militias that started the conflict and that
| Palestinians did not "simply leave", I became an anti zionist.
| I don't think Israel has the right to exist. People have the
| right to exist and they have the right to fight back against
| jewish supremacism.
| ost-ing wrote:
| > Be aware that Jews are not native to Palestine, except
| those that had been living there before the state was
| founded.
|
| Not true, many Semitic Jews who fled from those lands due to
| persecution went to Europe and North Africa, that includes
| Ashkenazi and Sephardim Jews.
|
| The difficulty I have with your statement is akin to denying
| a white, blue eyed aboriginal in Australia their heritage to
| the land just because one of their ancestors slept with a
| European colonialist - its fundamentally racist. White
| skinned blue eyed Australian aboriginals exist.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Palestinians are genetically closer to the jews that
| populated those lands centuries ago. The reality is
| palestinians ancestors were mostly jews who decided to
| convert to islam. Denying their rights to continue living
| there is absurd.
|
| The state of Israel is just another example of euro white
| colonialism.
| 7sigma wrote:
| Just because they are not native doesn't mean they can't
| live there, but they shouldn't live while oppressing the
| native Palestinians and prevent them from returning in
| order to preserve an ethnic majority.
|
| Jews outside of Palestine are not uniquely descended from
| Jews that lived there 2000 years ago. Also the idea of Jews
| as a homogeneous people is a fairly recent phenomenon,
| people married into Jewish families, converted etc...
|
| Even having mixed parentage can make you an oppressor.
| During slavery, mixed race people were often used in Brazil
| to hunt escaped slaves. At the end of the day its not about
| people's parentage but to what group they get put into and
| whether they choose to use any privilege they have to fight
| against oppression.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I'm becoming very skeptical of the "bad government, good
| people" idea. Governments need popular support. This goes even
| for horrible dictatorships. There are degrees, of course. An
| oppressive state can survive with less popular support than a
| democracy. But it still needs a decent amount. The machinery of
| dictatorship is as much about keeping popular support as it is
| about forcing people to suppress their opposition.
| barbazoo wrote:
| These people are manipulated by the media and by their
| government and by their spiritual leaders.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Could be, but that doesn't really matter in the end.
| Support is support.
| anton-c wrote:
| You were judging the morality of the people in your above
| comment. Being manipulated into giving support doesn't
| make the people bad.
| wat10000 wrote:
| At some point people have to be responsible for
| themselves if the concept of responsibility is to have
| any meaning at all. Our views and actions are all the
| product of our environment.
| anton-c wrote:
| > Our views and actions are all the product of our
| environment.
|
| And if that view is manipulated by people way more
| powerful than you...
|
| I'm all for personal responsibility but we have laws
| against certain practices because companies can hack
| brains so well. You don't think states can do it just as
| well if not better?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Where do you draw the line? Was the thoroughly
| indoctrinated SS officer shooting untermenschen
| responsible, or was he just a victim of manipulation?
| What about the average Nazi who just went to work every
| day and thought the Fuhrer was doing a decent job?
| anton-c wrote:
| I just can't implicate a whole country is bad because
| their regime is bad. I initially had to pause when you
| questioned "bad regime, good people" but find I can't say
| all of Iran or China is bad because of their govt - the
| countries I most often think of when that phrase comes to
| mind.
|
| Edit: where do you draw the line? Is an immigrant from a
| 'bad' country a bad person? Why didn't we try more
| Germans if what you say about support is true?
| whatshisface wrote:
| Anyone can be mislead factually, but we can't accept the
| idea that being told a crime is okay gives you a moral
| license to do it - otherwise every neo-nazi would escape
| among innumerable other criminals.
| anton-c wrote:
| I am just not willing to say a whole country is bad
| because a current bad regime has support.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's true, but you have to be realistic about the
| influence the five to fifteen percent with good morals
| are going to have in the long run. Especially when they
| also know the odds and choose to emigrate if they are
| able. There may have been a resistance in Germany, didn't
| succeed in the end.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| I sometimes wonder if a section of the public just wants
| plausible deniability for committing atrocities, and their
| government is happy to provide that for them.
| swat535 wrote:
| > I'm becoming very skeptical of the "bad government, good
| people" idea. Governments need popular support. This goes
| even for horrible dictatorships
|
| You're either being disingenuous or have never experienced
| real dictatorship. I lived under theocracy in IRAN for more
| than half my life and I promise you that the Westerns
| screaming from the back "just revolt!" have no clue what they
| are talking about.
|
| These regimes control communication, the media, intact laws
| that punishes any kind of dissent and often has multi layered
| of security forces to keep the population in check (not
| including the regular army and police).
|
| It's easy to shout this when it's not your life, your
| sibling, your child or significant other's life on the line.
| These regimes will not hesitate to murder their own citizens
| to stay in power.
|
| I don't know enough about Israel's internal politics and
| their society to make an assertive comment but what I _can_
| say, is that from my interactions with them, they seem like
| ordinary and kind people who have no intention of harming me
| or my family.
|
| Unless you are psychopath, you are not going to wake up one
| day and decide to murder people.
| Newtonip wrote:
| It's a state founded on ethnic cleansing. People were already
| living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for
| themselves.
|
| In late 1947, their militias begun a campaign of massacring and
| expelling Palestinians from mostly defenseless villages. These
| refuges pouring into neighboring Arab countries is what
| prompted the 1948 war. When the war ended, they murdered any
| civilians trying to return to their homes.
|
| Gaza was originally a refugee camp created for receiving these
| expelled people.
|
| The ethnic cleansing and denial of rights has continued ever
| since. The current Gaza war is not when the crimes against
| humanity started. Israel has been commiting crimes against
| humanity throughout its entire existence.
| avip wrote:
| Many states were "founded on ethnic cleansing". They are
| widely considered to posses a right of existence, and even
| expected to defend their citizens.
|
| (excuse me for ignoring the history trolling)
| breakyerself wrote:
| A right to exist doesn't justify a million other things
| that are completely unacceptable about the Israeli state.
| Newtonip wrote:
| > Many states were "founded on ethnic cleansing".
|
| So what? I don't get your point.
|
| Israel has continuously been oppressing the Palestinians
| for almost 80 years. That is immoral. Israel is in the
| wrong.
|
| > They are widely considered to posses a right of
| existence, and even expected to defend their citizens.
|
| You are just jumping to a different topic. I said nothing
| about its right to exist.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Really? Is this why the world does not recognize the north
| part of Cyprus despite Turkish Cypriots not butchering any
| Greeks south of the border since 1974, when they
| unilaterally declared independence?
|
| Please name some other countries post-WW2 that were
| "founded by ethnic cleansing" and embraced by the
| international community and educate the rest of us. And
| please don't include previously warring peoples whose
| leaders agreed on a population exchange and imposed that
| mandatory trauma on their own people.
|
| Palestine, Cyprus, and India had the unenviable luck of
| being long-term victims of a last gasp British empire's
| farewell divide-and-conquer gambit.
|
| (and excuse me for ignoring the deflection trolling)
| breppp wrote:
| > Please name some other countries post-WW2 that were
| "founded by ethnic cleansing" and embraced by the
| international community and educate the rest of us
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Greeks_from_Is
| tan...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Ger
| man...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Turks_from_Bulgar
| ia_...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istrian%E2%80%93Dalmatian_e
| xod...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_expulsion_of_Italians_
| fro...
|
| It was quite common and very accepted method in the
| 1940s, hell, expelling 15 million germans, some living
| there for hundreds of years, was proposed by Churchill.
|
| The reason you never heard about the rest of these is
| because the people were resettled, not kept in a state of
| permanent inheritable refugee state financed by the UN
| with financial incentives to be kept that way.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| >Please name some of other countries post-WW2 that were
| "founded by ethnic cleansing"
|
| (proceeds to list examples of countries which were
| already founded before the ethnic cleansing events they
| mention or events I already alluded to)
|
| It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to list Libyans
| expelling italians as a comparable example, when Libya
| was a colony of Italy. Ditto Germans, a people of
| belonging to the aggressor country. Bulgaria declared
| independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1908. And you
| have to explain why you included the pakistan link, as I
| already mentioned it in my post.
| breppp wrote:
| Palestinians can be arguably labeled as the aggressor
| country if that's how you want to spin the narrative. As
| Jews were peacefully buying lands when the massacres and
| ethnic cleansing started at 1929.
|
| Most germans were living in their respected newly founded
| Communist Poland and Czechoslovakia for hundreds of years
| if not more when expelled.
|
| Italians, even if they were colonialists, were expelled
| from their homes, by people who previously have been
| colonialists themselves, some when arriving with the arab
| conquests.
|
| Bulgaria expelled the turks in the 1950s, and the
| partition of india, forming pakistan and india, were two
| newly formed countries around the time of israel and
| palestine, included ethnic cleansing from both sides
|
| Do you think that these examples of ethnic cleansing post
| ww2 are irrelevant when no new country was formed?
| nine_k wrote:
| Look, it's not expelling some imperial troops. but
| peaceful citizens, who sometimes had lived there for
| centuries.
|
| The idea that people of different ethnicities live,
| unmixed, divided by neat borders of nation-states is
| pretty recent. This was the case neither in Europe, nor
| in Middle East for a very long time before the advent of
| state-based nationalism in the 19th century. It was quite
| normal for people of different ethnicities, languages,
| and even faiths to live intermixed in certain regions,
| especially areas of intense trade, which the entire
| Mediterranean coast used to be. Borders were more about
| economic and political control than ethnic identity.
|
| (The ethnic unity purportedly achieved by nation-states
| formed in 19th and early 20th centuries is also often
| more by fiat: look at the variety of German or Italian
| languages prior to unification of Germany or Italy, for
| instance, to say nothing about India.)
| compiler_queen wrote:
| What, like it's happened elsewhere so it's OK now? How do
| you think that kind of defense argument goes down in
| court?
| breppp wrote:
| It's not a defense argument rather than reality. People
| seem to think this conflict is special, but usually due
| to ignoring similarities to their own countries and their
| own moralities.
|
| Regarding court, there is a very valid defense in court
| called selective enforcement, and this is exactly for
| situations when someone is scape goated
| klipt wrote:
| No but when someone says "Israel is uniquely evil and
| must be destroyed because of [reason that also applies to
| dozens of other countries whose destruction they're not
| demanding]" it implies either ignorance or bad faith.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People were already living there when settlers came to
| create an ethno-state for themselves_
|
| Including a sizeable Jewish minority.
|
| The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy for
| outsiders to project on the region. But it's a continuation
| of outsiders (in particular Westerners, though the Iranians
| also bought this settler-colonialist nonsense which led to
| their recent miscalculations) with no connection to the land
| drawing up broad moral claims for how the Middle East should
| be divided up.
| pphysch wrote:
| There's plenty of videos of orthodox Jewish people getting
| brutalized in public by Israeli government thugs. There are
| many Jewish voices that oppose the genocide. Please don't
| conflate Judaism with a violent project of political
| extremism, even though the latter uses the former cynically
| as a "human shield".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Please don 't conflate Judaism with a violent project
| of political extremism_
|
| I'm not. I'm arguing that one can oppose what's happening
| in Gaza without careening into counterproductiveness and
| calling for the destruction of Israel.
| pphysch wrote:
| A state named "Israel" is not a prerequisite for Jewish
| people to live peacefully anywhere. In fact, it appears
| to be the opposite, based on historical fact. There are
| also Jewish communities that live peacefully with dignity
| in Iran.
| edanm wrote:
| > A state named "Israel" is not a prerequisite for Jewish
| people to live peacefully anywhere. In fact, it appears
| to be the opposite, based on historical fact.
|
| Whatever else you think, this is some massive
| misunderstanding of history.
|
| Historically, the lack of a state for Jews was one of the
| main reasons Jews experienced the Holocaust, which
| originated the term Genocide. Half of the Jewish
| population, making up (iirc) 90% of the population of
| Europe, died, because they had nowhere else to go.
|
| And of the ones that survived, they _still_ had nowhere
| else to go, no one wanted to take them in. The only place
| they could go, and what was agreed to worldwide, was to
| go to then-Palestine. Then, the hundreds of thousands of
| Jews "living peacefully" in Arab countries were
| ethnically cleansed from their countries, which they'd
| lived in for generations, and also largely had nowhere to
| go except Palestine.
| nathanlied wrote:
| There are Jewish communities within Iran, yes. But
| peacefully?
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-
| news/iran/2025-06-27/ty-... (archive:
| https://archive.is/0qEg9)
|
| One could blame this crackdown on Israel, sure. But that
| absolves the countries perpetuating persecution of Jews
| from their own share of responsibility in it. After all,
| when the American Government interned all those Japanese-
| Americans - did we blame Japan for it, or did we
| rightfully blame the American government?
|
| I do not seek to defend Israel's actions against the
| Palestinian people, but to say that the Jews live
| "peacefully and with dignity" in places where they often
| are scapegoated, persecuted, and killed out of hand is
| not the way. Look at what happened to the Jewish
| populations of the region between the 40s and now, and
| you will see a grim picture of persecution, killings, and
| exodus.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| nettanyahu has tried to bribe iranian jews to come to
| israel. they've chosen not to so I can't imagine its that
| bad for them there. additionally, iranian jews have
| positionsof power in government and mandated
| representation. it would be a very easy argument to make
| that iranian jews in iran are treated much better than
| non jewish palestinians have ever been treated in israel.
| ffin wrote:
| source?
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Jews
|
| " In July 2007, Iran's Jewish community rejected
| financial emigration incentives to leave Iran. Offers
| ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 British pounds, financed by
| a wealthy expatriate Jew with the support of the Israeli
| government, were turned down by Iran's Jewish
| leaders.[90][106][107] To place the incentives in
| perspective, the sums offered were up to 3 times or more
| than the average annual income for an Iranian.[108]
| However, in late 2007 at least forty Iranian Jews
| accepted financial incentives offered by Jewish charities
| for immigrating to Israel.[109]"
| slt2021 wrote:
| Israel literally bombed their own jews in Iraq to force
| them to relocate to israel
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad
| _bo...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "Those who assign responsibility for the bombings to an
| Israeli or Iraqi Zionist underground movement suggest the
| motive was to encourage Iraqi Jews to immigrate to
| Israel."
|
| You're stating a supposition as a fact.
| breppp wrote:
| While most Iranian Jews left Iran and are currently in
| Israel, 200k compared to 9k left in Iran, so the numbers
| don't really support your statement
| breppp wrote:
| > A state named "Israel" is not a prerequisite for Jewish
| people to live peacefully anywhere. In fact, it appears
| to be the opposite, based on historical fact
|
| That's not my take from 2000 years of Jewish prosecution,
| in muslim countries or europe
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _state named "Israel" is not a prerequisite for Jewish
| people to live peacefully anywhere_
|
| Sort of irrelevant. The state of Israel exists. Israelis
| who call that land their home exist.
|
| Those calling for the destruction of Israel are
| advocating for a holy war in the Levant. A war that would
| lead to hundreds of thousands if not millions of
| casualties.
| Newtonip wrote:
| > Including a sizeable Jewish minority.
|
| There was a Jewish community in Palestine (mostly centered
| around Jerusalem) but they did not come up with the Zionist
| project. Actually, many were opposed and some of their
| descendants still do so to this day.
|
| > The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy
| for outsiders to project on the region
|
| The (European) architects of the Zionist project literally
| called it colonialism.
|
| "You are being invited to help make history. It doesn't
| involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen
| but Jews ... How, then, do I happen to turn to you since
| this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed?
| Because it is something colonial." -Theodor Herzl
|
| Ze'ev Jabotinsky literally compared the Zionist project to
| other colonial projects when arguing the people living
| there would fight back against their colonizers and the
| need for numbers and strength to counter them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Ze 'ev Jabotinsky literally compared the Zionist
| project to other colonial projects_
|
| The Zionist Project is comparable to colonialism. That
| doesn't make it settler-colonialism. (And Jabotinsky
| isn't the final word on anything other than himself.)
| slt2021 wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sure. I can find terrible people opining on the case for
| a Palestinian state, too. That isn't really an argument
| about what it is.
| catlover76 wrote:
| Having a sizeable minority of some kind does not really
| justify or excuse kicking out other ethnicities and
| religions to form a new state based on the primacy of that
| group. The mental gymnastics to think that expelling people
| living there while bringing in a population from Europe to
| displace them--literally to the point of having them move
| into homes vacated by Arabs who were expelled--is something
| other than a settler-colonialist is pretty astounding.
|
| And the ambivalence and opposition of the Jews of Palestine
| to the Zionist project is fairly well-documented.
|
| Rabbi Yakov Shapiro talks a lot about that, I think Gabor
| Mate does to some extent as well.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7POk0hVsgM
| cenamus wrote:
| Some people seem to have the idea that most of the people
| are European Jews, when in reality, it was more Arab jews,
| in large part due to the Nazis. The standardized language
| even reflects this, closet to the local pronounciation of
| hebrew than the "accents" in Europe. Or even Jiddish
| erikerikson wrote:
| > how the Middle East should be divided up
|
| Given how every group claims it is a holy place, I'd expect
| each group would want it held in a state of peace,
| prosperity, and reverence for the benefits of creation.
| Instead they all seem bent on holding their holy lands in
| states of violence, discord, and waste.
|
| You're not wrong that there is deep external interference
| but wouldn't holy peoples rise above any of that to do
| better from every side?
| tdeck wrote:
| > The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy
| for outsiders to project on the region.
|
| "Outsiders" like the Palestine Jewish Colonization
| Association that funded Zionist settlement in Palestine?
| The problem with folks who try to claim that this is
| ahistorical is that contemporary Zionists talked all the
| time about colonizing Palestine.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Jewish_Colonizati
| o...
| volleyball wrote:
| In 1920 (the year when British took over Palestine from the
| Ottomans) the jewish population was less than 10% Jewish
| and represented less than 1% of global Jewry. By 1948,
| after the British flooded in Jewish migrants mainly from
| Europe and the Americas, the population became about ~65% +
| arab and 35+% Jewish. Zionism was always predicated on
| Ethnic cleansing from the start and the founders of
| zionists were always aware of that fact.
|
| "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the
| border by procuring employment for it in the transit
| countries, while denying it any employment in our own
| country." - Theodore Herzl , Father of Zionism in 1895.
|
| "With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for
| settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see
| anything immoral in it." - David Ben Gurion, Father of
| Israel.
|
| "the world has become accustomed to the idea of mass
| migrations and has become fond of them. ... Hitler - as
| odious as he is to us - has given this idea a good name in
| the world." - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Founder of Revisionist
| Zionism, 1940.
|
| Zionism is textbook settler-colonialism. I dont see it
| worth even arguing the point.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > People were already living there when settlers came to
| create an ethno-state for themselves.
|
| Isn't that just history repeating itself? Even in the old
| testament, they had to clear the current inhabitants of their
| promised land after wander the desert for 40 years.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Archeology suggests biblical Israel was actually a
| federation of tribes, some of which were enemies in early
| parts of the Bible. For example, the philistines which
| became one of the 12 tribes and also are the origin of the
| term Palestinian.
| breppp wrote:
| They never became an Israeli tribe, they were a people of
| a foreign origin, probably greek. They have disappeared
| from history after they were exiled by the babylonians,
| like most people of the area of that time.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| I don't think it's possible to understand the whole issue
| without taking into account how people fled into Israel, both
| because of genocide in Europe as well as prosecution in
| multi-ethnic yet predominantly Arab states. Germany being in
| an awkward position of being an economically dominant state
| but also having contributed to the whole misery. Also the US
| is far from neutral probably due to deeper ties that are just
| part of reality. You cannot undo the past but I don't think
| it's possible to unroll the whole problem without properly
| confronting it. The increasingly horrific escalations have
| obviously completely detached from any reason
| Bilal_io wrote:
| They fled into Palestine*, and later established the state
| of Israel. Saying they fled into Israel assumes there was
| an Israel to begin with, but there wasn't.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Yes, it was a British colony... Either way, the vast
| majority moved there after the state was established. And
| yes, most suffered prosecution around the world including
| Arab countries. Pogroms against Jews are documented since
| centuries.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I would put myself in the timeframe of the Holocaust era.
| Germans were next to the concentration camps and they did
| nothing. Germans were conditioned to support nationalism. And
| they trusted the nationalist party (known as nazionale Party).
| The Germans had convinced themselves that the Jews were
| different people. (And the Jews had earned much infamy during
| the time when Germany was suffering economically.)
|
| Today, we see Israelis who are taught to perceive Palestinians
| as enemies. They see the Palestinian flag during birthrights
| and are taught by the IDF to hate it. And they are also taught
| that the west bank is dangerous and they are not to go there.
| Then we see IDF operations in West Bank and we see silence. We
| know Gaza is in a plight caused by Israel and we see silence
| and ignorance. Israel is bad. Israelis are bad too. And the
| polls have shown that 80% wish for Gaza to be cleansed, 56%
| support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel, 47%
| want the IDF to act according to the Biblical war against
| Jericho. That is effectively 47% want murder while 33% want
| expulsion (equivalent of the ghettos+concentration camps). The
| benefit of doubt is disappearing rapidly fast.
|
| And the west has been supporting Israel for decades in this
| campaign. This is the second millenial crusade of Europe (aka
| the west).
| barbazoo wrote:
| Brainwashing by the government, religion, the media, schools,
| etc is what I suspect based on documentaries I watched. It's
| heartbreaking what people can be made to think and say. I feel
| bad for the citizens of Israel to have become detached so much
| from humanity.
| threatofrain wrote:
| By now Gaza has been so destroyed that it has become a nation
| of children. About 40% of people there are age 14.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| There is strong support within Israel for the genocide of
| Palestinians.
|
| Unfortunately religious zionism isn't limited to Jews.
| Christian evangelicals also support it, and they make up a huge
| percentage of voting americans (and even worse, elected
| officials).
|
| https://theconversation.com/in-israel-calls-for-genocide-hav...
|
| https://theconversation.com/christian-zionism-hasnt-always-b...
| n1b0m wrote:
| From the start of Israel's assault on Gaza, the vast majority
| of Israelis haven't shown any concern about the suffering in
| Gaza. Those who campaign for an end to the war do so purely as
| a means to secure the release of the hostages.
| Bilal_io wrote:
| The civilians even blocked aid entering Gaza.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| That's not surprising. They remember the scenes of ecstatic
| celebration on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank on
| october 7. And the fact is that the people of Gaza could end
| the conflict whenever they want. All they need to do is
| surrender and hand over the hostages. You might think i'm
| oversimplifying but actually that's really it.
| beardedwizard wrote:
| What are you actually expecting an average Israeli who does not
| agree with this to do? This comment strikes me as wild
| considering the exact same thing is playing out in America
| right now, and a bunch of people are making up their minds
| about "Americans" and what they stand for.
|
| The same has been true for Iran, only up until now (and
| probably still) we have always had a more nuanced discussion -
| its the Iranian government, not the people of Iran.
|
| Come on, the government of many countries does not necessarily
| represent the people.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > What are you actually expecting an average Israeli who does
| not agree with this to do?
|
| Funny you say this because you don't have to look far for
| people saying that "Gazans deserve what's happening" because
| the average Gazan should fight back against Hamas.
| beardedwizard wrote:
| The same thing has been said generally about Muslims and
| Islamic terror organizations.
|
| Well anyway, it is still crazy to me that somebody is
| making a decision about the entire population of a country
| based on the governments actions in 2025.
| atmavatar wrote:
| Some things to consider:
|
| * The majority of the Palestinian population are minors (<
| 18)
|
| * The last nationwide election in Palestine was 2006
|
| In other words, the last time an election was held, the
| majority of Palestinians weren't yet born, let alone old
| enough to vote in it. So, it's difficult to hold the
| Palestinian people en masse responsible for Hamas in the
| same way we'd hold Israelis responsible for their current
| government, who held their last election in 2022.
| keutoi wrote:
| Israel is supposed to be a democratic state. If the average
| Israeli disagrees with this they can speak up. The only
| voices we are hearing now are those who support it's current
| activities. Those who oppose are fewer and quieter.
| beardedwizard wrote:
| what evidence do you have to support that claim?
|
| I'm also baffled by the suggestion that democracy truly
| represents a majority and the apparent belief that dissent
| is quickly processed and rectified by democracy. Which
| country do you think shows this is working well?
| keutoi wrote:
| It might be true that I am in a bubble and I am only
| hearing voices supporting these atrocities.
|
| Democracy need not represent the majority, but if it
| works against the majority without any repercussions then
| who is to blame? Will the leadership be held accountable?
|
| This war was started because the government knew they can
| get away with it. Every citizen is complicit in every
| crime committed by their government. Don't the citizens
| enjoy the fruits of crime even after claiming to oppose
| the actions of their government?
| beardedwizard wrote:
| What specifically do you want individual citizens to do?
| Are you yourself complicit in everything your government
| does? Do you even know what they do?
|
| Israelis are protesting, for better or worse this is what
| democracy looks like.
|
| Another question to ask, does every Russian support the
| war in Ukraine? What can they do about it?
| keutoi wrote:
| Yes, I am complicit in the crimes of my government. I am
| helpless do much, but the crime must be acknowledged. We
| are a part of the system, no sense in burying our head in
| the sand.
|
| Only when a crime is acknowledge, we can talk about
| punishments. Will Israeli people not profit from this
| war? Protests will have some teeth if steps be taken so
| this will not repeat itself. I don't see this happening.
|
| Look at USA, war after war. Presidents are blamed but not
| punished and the population enjoys the economical
| hegemony that is the fruit of war.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| People aren't speaking up because it's only a democracy
| on paper. If you're too vocal about your opposition to
| Israel you will be taken care of.
| ponector wrote:
| And you can think the same way about russians. They support all
| horrors russian people do to Ukrainian cities. And many are
| trying to earn some extra cash out of it.
| enlightenedfool wrote:
| No different how Americans are brain washed that they are
| supporting a noble goal democracy at whatever cost around the
| world
| ponector wrote:
| Are they brainwashed? Are they really supporting?
|
| In 2025 USA is supporting russian dictator more than
| Ukrainian democratic government.
| Jensson wrote:
| > In 2025 USA is supporting russian dictator more than
| Ukrainian democratic government.
|
| Are they? I see USA still supplying Ukraine with weapons,
| how many weapons have Russia gotten from USA? None, USA
| is not selling any weapons to Russia still.
| tdeck wrote:
| Almost half of Jewish Israelis polled _said_ they supported
| killing everyone in Gaza. https://archive.is/nNzq4 About 80
| percent supported ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
|
| I don't think it's just propaganda. These folks know they'll
| materially benefit from Palestinians being dispossessed of
| their remaining land.
| ckemere wrote:
| I upvoted this article because it reminds me that there are
| Israelis who are opposed to what is going on. And newspapers
| that take risk to report on it. And maybe even military
| investigators trying to stop it.
|
| It's no different with the American military.
| grafmax wrote:
| > if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it
| was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by
| now
|
| It's wrong to single out Israel. The US is funding this mass
| murder of children and blocking attempts to stop it. It should
| correctly be called the US-Israeli genocide of Gaza.
|
| For my part, as an American and a nobody, I feel helpless to
| stop the atrocities my government is participating in.
|
| But I've found, for myself, the reason to fight the genocide -
| however I can - isn't because I expect to stop it. I am
| powerless to do that. For me it's to maintain a sense of human
| dignity in the face of evil.
|
| Knowing my country's role in the mass murder of children,
| shrugging my shoulders would feel like I'm surrendering
| something precious.
| YZF wrote:
| How do you know there were horrors and crimes against humanity?
| Anything coming out of Gaza is controlled by Hamas and the
| media is latching onto that with great enthusiasm.
|
| Every war is ugly. Virtually every war has war crimes. You are
| being manipulated. I've spoken to Israeli soldiers who have
| been in Gaza. Have you? Have you reached out to the nice people
| you met and Israel and had this discussion with them? Yes, the
| civilian population in Gaza is suffering, but we should direct
| our anger at the cause which is their elected government,
| Hamas. Israel can't be expected to magically ensure the
| civilians are doing great while being able to go after Hamas
| and force it to surrender and return the hostages.
|
| I'll also say that I think Israel could have made some
| adjustments to its approach but largely those that attack
| Israel don't offer any alternatives and likely would respond
| with significantly more force under similar circumstances (and
| we have seen with our own eyes how the west responded to Al
| Qaeda and ISIS, with significant more force, significantly
| larger loss of life, to a significantly smaller threat and
| attack).
| xg15 wrote:
| > _He also said the activity in his area of service is referred
| to as Operation Salted Fish - the name of the Israeli version of
| the children 's game "Red light, green light"._
|
| The Israeli tradition of giving their Gaza operations names of
| children's games also continues, after "Operation Cast Lead".
|
| (Not sure if they wanted to make a reference to Squid Games as
| well...)
| alkhatib wrote:
| Green light : They send out notifications to people telling
| them aid is available at a certain location.
|
| Red light: 10 minutes later they send out another notification
| saying no aid is being distributed there today and start
| shooting anyone in the area
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Just like several months ago, "we advise Gazans to move to
| southern Gaza as operations intensify in the north".
|
| Within days: "Israeli bombing of southern Gaza intensifies
| 80%".
| razemio wrote:
| I have to say, these warnings are byond any logic I can
| comprehend. It it not like Hamas does not get these
| warnings. Obviously they moved aswell. Then again, was this
| intended by Israel? So in the end nobody can trust these
| warnings. They are pointless.
| vkou wrote:
| The target for the warnings isn't Palestinians, it's a
| figleaf for international media.
| sdeframond wrote:
| As a westerner, I feel ashamed that my country is Isreal's ally.
| It makes me guilty by association because the western world is
| letting Israel commit thoses atrocities.
|
| Worse, we are helping them when they need it, and closing our
| eyes when they don't want us to watch.
| EasyMark wrote:
| THe USA is currently run by a convicted felon, so it doesn't
| really surprise me.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Is anyone surprised at horrific behaviour by Israel and the IDF
| at this point?
|
| Every country has a percentage of right wing psychopaths.
| Unfortunately, they seem to be running the government in Israel.
|
| Israel's intended end game seem to be to make Gaza completely
| uninhabitable, so that the Palestinians are forced to leave, then
| Israel can grab the land. A bit like they are doing in the West
| Bank, but on turbo mode. However, the Palestinians don't want to
| leave their land (why should they?) and no other state wants to
| take them. So we are left with enormous human misery, with no end
| in sight.
|
| Most baffling of all, many Western states are not just turning a
| blind eye, but actively supporting Israel. Shame on them.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Some context first so my opinion isn't misconstrued as as leftist
| stereotype. This is within context of the behavior described in
| the article. - I'm a Jew in USA, and served in
| the military for more than a decade. - I used to get
| annoyed by the Palestinian protests I'd see in the years before
| this, and generally sided with Israel, and the operations its
| military performed in counter-Shia-militia operations etc in the
| region, and was outraged at the Oct 7 attacks.
|
| Israel's operations as described in the article are clear-cut war
| crimes. The military and civilian leaders responsible for these
| ROE should face something similar to the Nuremberg trials. I am
| embarrassed for my country's support of Israel's operations.
|
| This is large-scale, continued, intentional CIVCAS.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Hamas are not Shia, they're Sunni. And Shia is not some some
| inherently violent ideology as your usage of the word there
| implies. And, while I'm at it, you should know the human crimes
| in the Gaza strip long predate Oct 7. Chemical weapons,
| starvation, terror bombing, these are tactics that the IDF's
| deployed in short time I've been alive (21st century).
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Tracking on the Shia; sorry about the confusion! Referring to
| Iran-backed ops in Syria etc.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| The commenter is probably referring to Hezbollah and Iran.
|
| And yes, the IDF has been relying on abhorrent & violently
| escalatory tactics since at least 1982 (Lebanon invasion).
|
| On that note, I recently picked up an excellent book ("Our
| American Israel") that dives pretty deep into the US-Israel
| relationship, and spends a good chunk of time on how the
| invasion of Lebanon was received by the West.
|
| There are definitely some parallels between 1982 and the
| ongoing Gaza genocide with regards to the use of violence.
| But the most salient point to me is that it is quite clear
| that Israel learned a ton on how to ensure its image in the
| West does not easily get tarnished going forward.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I love the Jewish community, so I don't say this lightly, but I
| view Netanyahu actions as somewhat resembling Nazi Germany in
| one respect (though certainly not others). He may not believe
| Israeli Jews have a birthright to the whole world (rather they
| are trying to strengthen one nation's borders), but there is no
| doubt in my mind they are indiscriminately cleansing a people
| out of existence. That is their aim, beyond simple deterrence
| or defense.
|
| The October terror attack is not to be defended, but the
| response is disgusting behavior by the state of Israel. There's
| nothing proportionate about this. Rather Israel sees this as an
| opportunity to strengthen its position and wipe out its enemies
| - and innocent men, women, and children.
|
| In the United States, we talk about Israel as if it must be
| protected because it's the Middle East's only democracy. It is
| not a liberal democracy. It exists only to protect the rights
| of one type of people with one particular type of ethnicity. In
| America, we wouldn't recognize this as a democracy.
|
| For our part, it's important to protect our own interests in
| the region and so yes, strange bedfellows. But given
| Netanyahu's comfort with war crime, given Israel's weak and
| distorted democratic institution, and given what nationalism
| can do to a country, we should be very careful to balance and
| diversify our interests.
|
| Israel in another 10 years might not be recognizable. It's
| cause for alarm.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Israel in another 10 years might not be recognizable.
|
| The strange thing is, this statement held true _before_
| October 7th. Hopefully not everyone has forgotten that there
| were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets before
| the war, protesting what Netanyahu was doing to the Israeli
| government.
| edanm wrote:
| There are many protesting this government as we speak, as
| well.
| justin66 wrote:
| That must be a harrowing situation. It didn't exactly
| look safe and low stress _before_ the war.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| They absolutely should face something similar to the Nuremberg
| trials. This is planned extermination of a group of people.
|
| Unfortunately the Israeli lobby has so much money and power
| they would silence anyone who says that publicly by accusing
| them of being antisemitic.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Another POV is that when you distill everyone's experiences,
| not just yours, into legitimate votes, people, on both sides of
| this conflict, choose violence. Does the discourse you
| participate in achieve your goals? No, it achieves the
| opposite.
|
| What is this discourse? "Sharpen the fractal of demographics
| and opinions until you get some rare alignment between them,
| and you find a supposedly irrefutable and most valid position."
| Can you see why winning Internet arguments and getting upvotes
| doesn't translate to your goals?
|
| Of course you should share these thoughts and forums like these
| should publish them. But as much as I hate the Intellectual
| Dark Web and its philosophies, which are as ridiculous as, "you
| can gain power by thinking about things differently," I think
| they are right that popularity contests are not the end all be
| all of conflict resolution.
| EasyMark wrote:
| RIght this isn't Israel as a whole, it's the crazed right wing
| Netanyahu government. I can understand taking out Hamas but
| their tactics have far superceded what is considered "not a war
| crime"
| edanm wrote:
| I'll provide context too - I'm a Jewish Israeli. I'd probably
| be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but
| I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood
| online.
|
| This Haaretz article is very troubling. To the extent it's
| accurate, there's not much question that it reflects war
| crimes.
|
| A few thoughts:
|
| 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation
| into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent
| this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing
| war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
|
| 2. There is clearly something broken with the GHF and the new
| aid delivery - dozens dead every day for weeks. We really need
| some answers on what's going on.
|
| 3. From Haaretz today:
|
| > The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Saturday
| urged Israel to investigate reports that soldiers opened fire
| towards unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites,
| detailed in a Haaretz expose, calling the allegations "too
| grave to ignore," while denying that any such incidents
| occurred within its facilities.
|
| > GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no
| incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any
| of our distribution sites."
| NohatCoder wrote:
| The only news in the article is the way civilians are
| murdered. The Israeli government already kills far more
| people per day through deliberately induced starvation.
|
| These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty,
| but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.
| neepi wrote:
| I don't like getting involved in political threads but on
| this I have to.
|
| All information presented is mostly unverified testimony
| printed verbatim by the press from untrustworthy sources on
| both sides. It's difficult to tell what is fact and what is
| not. A lot of early reports in this war turned out to be
| false information and the rush to immediate news notification
| rather than quality journalism means that the headline
| changes context very quickly from the first cut to what
| people read and remember. (I wrote an extensive suite of
| software to track this)
|
| Wait and see. Do not judge too early. Take nothing as
| verbatim from anyone without evidence.
|
| Don't be unknowing partisans of an information war. Veracity
| takes time.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| The information is unverified because Israel does not allow
| journalists into Gaza.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I've seen this come up a lot. It's not a terrible point
| but the implications are exaggerated. Hamas controls the
| journalism in Gaza. Just because Israel isn't open enough
| doesn't automatically make the hamas narrative true.
| YZF wrote:
| Israel has allowed journalists into Gaza many times
| during the war. They need to accompany the IDF and the
| IDF has the right to censor information that can endanger
| their soldiers but does not control the narrative or the
| fact reporting.
|
| Hamas has a history of threatening and intimidating
| journalists in Gaza.
|
| https://cpj.org/2025/05/gaza-journalists-speak-out-about-
| ham...
|
| Gaza is also an active war zone. It is dubious that
| western media could just walk into Gaza and report freely
| even if the IDF allowed that. In theory media could have
| crossed into Gaza from Egypt before Israel occupied the
| Philadelphi corridor and the border crossing but none
| did. So Egypt (and/or the Gazan authorities) e.g. also
| did not allow journalists into Gaza.
|
| So this statement is sort of true but there's more to be
| considered here.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Note that this response is from a cynical American sick of
| Israel always Getting Away With It. I have no problem with
| Jewish people, but I strongly distrust the state of Israel
| and believe that it's a force that makes Jewish people less
| safe as the state screams it is doing what it is doing to
| protect Jewish people. One of my close college friends is a
| rabbi, and we've been talking about this since the start of
| the hostage crisis.
|
| > 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing
| investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to
| whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and
| anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly
| tried in court.
|
| There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu,
| Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would
| immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such
| a thing.
|
| Even if Israel did investigate, there's nothing more classic
| than Israel going "we investigated ourselves and found we did
| nothing wrong".
|
| So if you want accountability, drive that internally with
| your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office
| YZF wrote:
| As another Jewish Israeli I agree this is concerning.
|
| I do want you to consider the context here on Hacker News
| though. You and me have context, we understand the history,
| we understand at least something about wars and how they are
| fought. Most people here do not.
|
| The problem isn't whether firing on civilians with no reason
| when they come to get food is wrong or right. We all know
| it's wrong. The soldiers in Gaza know it's wrong. We all know
| this is a war crime.
|
| Most cases of war crimes during war are not prosecuted at all
| and not visibly. This is true for US wars in the middle east.
| It's true for the war the West wages against ISIS. It's true
| for Ukraine and Russia. It's a sad but unfortunate reality of
| our world. The current political climate and government in
| Israel are also not the best for the kind of outcome you are
| describing.
|
| Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population
| centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of
| civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the
| middle east is to engage in war crimes.
|
| Where do we place Israel on that scale? Is there more
| attention on Israel vs. other similar world events? Why? Do
| we see similar public debate and discussion of the morality
| of those wars in other countries? Again, where is Israel on
| that scale (not of idealistic fantasy world of justice but in
| the real world)?
| like_any_other wrote:
| > I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by
| Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as
| conventionally understood online.
|
| Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far)
| left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's
| rights/LGBT/other social stances?
|
| (Orthogonally, I can certainly empathize with being pro-
| something, but not pro-everything-that-something-does.
| There's certainly nothing intrinsic to a Jewish state that
| would require firing at unarmed crowds.)
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| Israel is an excellent example of what happens if a
| fundamentalist theocracy becomes too powerful compared to its
| neighbors.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Ironically, Israel's government would be less theocratic-
| conservative if it weren't so hard to form governing coalitions
| in the Knesset.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_twent...
|
| After moderate partners abandoned Netanyahu, his only source of
| support was more right-wing partners, which steadily pushed
| government policy to the ultra-right.
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| It's not ironic at all, it's democracy working as intended.
|
| It might superficially appear ironic because us in the west
| confuse being a democracy with being moderate. But that's not
| the case if a large fraction of your population are religious
| fundamentalists, which goes to my point. In Israel, the
| problem isn't just the government, it's also the culture of
| the majority of the population.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Considering ~50% of the Knesset is in opposition, I don't
| think it's proof that a politically large fraction of
| Israeli society is religiously fundamentalist.
|
| It's non-negligible, but the reasons ultra-right parties
| like Otzma Yehudit [0] have a voice in politics has more to
| do with election calculus by Netanyahu.
|
| The ideal 2+ party parliamentary system seems to be >2 but
| <6.
|
| Below that, you get bad outcomes (US). Above that, you get
| bad outcomes (Israel, India).
|
| Somewhere in the middle, it forces the right amount of
| coerced cooperation... most of the time (Germany).
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otzma_Yehudit
| wuschel wrote:
| How credible is the reporting in in Haaretz?
|
| I am normally fairly well accustomed to the reliability and
| credibility of newspapers, but I have never read this newspaper.
| woooooo wrote:
| Historically it's the pre-eminent center-left paper in Israel,
| with the Jerusalem Post being the center-right flagship.
| amit_m wrote:
| It is a credible source with a left-wing focus.
| CommanderData wrote:
| Clever piece of engineering that needs to be studied. The US and
| Israel setup a company/foundation to "distribute" aid. I guess to
| escape the accusations that they are systematically starving
| Gaza's population. It seems to be working, they can hide behind
| this while inflicting even more crimes against Palestinians.
|
| I was going to ask if people really fall for this, but it seems
| like they do.
| d1ss0nanz wrote:
| And that's just the beginning. They want to expand to the east.
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I'm not going to claim a side in this, but I do have a question
| to pose. When you have two ideologies which are so diametrically
| opposed to each other that they cannot coexist in the same space
| at the same time, what is the alternative outcome? One must
| destroy the other for peace to exist - this is the nature of war.
| To think that there is some world where everyone comes away from
| this with a handshake and an agreement is just naive.
|
| I'll ask again: What is the alternative?
| rexpop wrote:
| > two ideologies which are so diametrically opposed to each
| other that they cannot coexist
|
| Ideologies aren't platonic solids. They must be constantly
| refurbished in the minds of the avowed. Every moment of every
| day informs them--reinforces or depletes them. Changes their
| character.
|
| It's guaranteed that these minds will, eventually, change. Who
| survives to bare this change remains to be seen.
|
| Keep in mind, also, that Israel vs. Gaza is in some ways just a
| proxy war between US/Europe and Iran/Russia who support Hamas,
| Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Ideological differences, frankly,
| are only a surface patina on the same old economic games.
|
| Lastly, consider a third framing: that Israel/Gaza is only the
| hottest segment of a conflict that encircles the globe: the
| border between imperial powers and colonized peoples, like
| US/Mexico etc. Borders, passports, and citizenship are a
| worldwide system of privileges and protections that Westphalian
| Nationstates collude to maintain.
|
| I'm not sure what ideologies you refer to. Islam and Judaism?
| Not really relevant to the discussion, I don't think.
| exodust wrote:
| > "surface patina"
|
| Tell that to the victims of gleeful brutality under the
| guidance of fundamentalist ideology, like that engrained in
| Islamist governance and extremist militant groups.
|
| Your post reads like the come-down from intellectual pill-
| popping. Your attempt to dilute a serious problem in the
| world to "patinas" and reduce the problem to imperial vs
| colonized peoples, sounds like a manifesto from the lawns of
| a university activist encampment.
|
| Consider the framing, you ask. I considered it and reject it,
| The subjugation of "infidels" under expansionist oppressive
| religious groups with the intent to bring "peace" is an
| imperialism all of its own, but much worse. Peace... at the
| cost of freedom, autonomy, expression, equality.
| keutoi wrote:
| >The subjugation of "infidels" under expansionist
| oppressive religious groups with the intent to bring
| "peace" is an imperialism all of its own, but much worse.
| Peace... at the cost of freedom, autonomy, expression,
| equality.
|
| Are you arguing for or against Israel?
| bigyabai wrote:
| > like that engrained in Islamist governance and extremist
| militant groups.
|
| Or that engrained in the joint Israeli/American coup that
| overthrew Iran's last democratically-elected leader. The
| one that installed a secret police that tortured and
| disappeared tens of thousands of citizens under the
| training of CIA and Mossad operatives:
| https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/legal-and-political-
| mag...
|
| If you think _his_ comment reads like revisionism, imagine
| how ridiculous _you_ sound to an educated audience. C 'mon
| now.
| edanm wrote:
| I disagree that there are two driving ideologies here that are
| diametrically opposed.
|
| Hamas's ideology is certainly opposed to Israel existing, but
| they are not the only Palestinians, and other ideologies can
| take hold and be supported by the populace (I hope). The
| Palestinian Authority has been working together with Israel
| since its founding, after all, and with all the problems it
| has, it still represents a model that _could_ work, in theory,
| and they pursue largely diplomatic ways to gain recognition.
| jopsen wrote:
| > One must destroy the other for peace to exist - this is the
| nature of war.
|
| Wars generally don't end with genocide.
|
| Conquered people don't cease to exist. Worst case they are
| subjugated, but these days they just assimilated/absorbed.
|
| The alternative is perpetual war, or some sort of compromise.
|
| If Hamas surrendered unconditionally tomorrow, what would
| Israel do?
| Buttons840 wrote:
| It's worth comparing these reports to the Flour Massacre
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_Massacre) that occurred over
| a year ago.
|
| I'd also suggest this (impassioned) video about the event:
| https://youtu.be/sCW-ARvywto?t=5020
|
| Compare this reporting from a year ago with the Wikipedia page
| now. How has this reporting from a year ago held up?
| justin66 wrote:
| People ought to understand that this problem of innocent Gazans -
| often children - being fired upon by IDF soldiers isn't a new
| one, it predates the current food distribution operation.
|
| An article from October in the NY Times detailing some well-
| documented atrocities ("44 health care workers saw multiple cases
| of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in
| Gaza") was published as an opinion piece, in spite of the fact
| that it consisted of dozens of eyewitness accounts. [0][1]
|
| The incomparable sway that Israel holds in American media and
| American politics prevents pressure to hold those responsible
| accountable on an international level. When there's enough
| pressure within Israel to demand accountability for something
| terrible (and that's rare enough, outside of their peace
| movement) the conclusion drawn is typically that the soldiers are
| just careless, but not acting with malice. [2] If there's a
| single instance of an IDF soldier being held accountable for a
| civilian killing in this conflict, someone could make me feel a
| little better by sharing it.
|
| [0]
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-...
|
| [1] https://archive.is/9Lr00
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam...
| edanm wrote:
| I just want to point out something important about that article
| - it's not just talking about children, it's specifically
| talking about pre-teen children. Hamas recruits many "children"
| in the sense of under-18s to fight, but that's not true of pre-
| teen children.
|
| (Btw, I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the
| IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that
| presented in the article. But I want to forestall a common
| "pro-Israeli" objection that is not true in this case.)
| justin66 wrote:
| > I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF
| is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that
| presented in the article.
|
| I think the appropriate term is "circumstantial evidence." A
| doctor wouldn't be in the position to actually witness the
| cause of a gunshot wound (hey, maybe all these well-placed
| gunshot wounds are the result of Palestinians shooting their
| own kids, I guess would be the alternate explanation...), but
| let's not pretend that these reports are not evidence of
| crimes, evidence worthy of investigation.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Hamas is playing by Goodhart's law - 100% insurgency.
| Recruiting children, hiding in hospitals, smuggling weapons
| with food aid.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Most people do understand, there are many sites dedicated to
| citing and maintaining lists of the atrocities for easy access
| through google. I think it's okay just to refer to the incident
| in the article and immediate opinions and emotions it evokes.
| flkenosad wrote:
| WW3 is going to be China vs Israel. Watch.
| pphysch wrote:
| Israel can't even sustain a hot war with Iran, with US backing,
| despite assassinating dozens of Iranian top brass. China
| represents 10-20 Irans.
|
| China (and Turkey, Arab states) is more or less content to sit
| and watch USA destroy itself domestically and internationally
| over the failed Zionist project. "Do nothing, win."
| anonymars wrote:
| One could make the argument that it's happening right now.
| Russia+North Korea, Iran, Hamas, they are all intertwined. And
| then on the other side you could say Ukraine, US, Israel.
|
| Thought experiment: if the Israel/Gaza conflict didn't pop off,
| would the US presidency be the same right now? How did that
| change affect the Russia/Ukraine conflict? Etc.
| Voultapher wrote:
| If Russia were to win the war and a Ukrainian underground would
| launch "guerrilla attacks" against Russia, they would be lauded
| as heros. Now here we have a somewhat similar story, of a foreign
| invader that displaced the local people not too long ago and a
| remaining native opposition. There is no version of this that
| will end up with the Palestinians getting a fair outcome. I've
| calling this a genocide quite early on, sadly it looks like I was
| right and there is probably many condemning details we aren't yet
| aware of.
| ath3nd wrote:
| What else is new? Israel has been doing war crime after war
| crime, and we are acting surprised that they are committing yet
| another one?
|
| The genociders genociding is hardly surprising.
| KevinMS wrote:
| "Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know
| they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire."
|
| The aid workers and their protectors are trying to prevent a mob
| scene. They are not firing "at". The correct translation was
| "towards".
|
| https://x.com/COLRICHARDKEMP/status/1938899719364784350
| l33tbro wrote:
| Your source is a Zionist whackjob who thinks Amnesty UK should
| have its charity status removed lol
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| Seems like they were ordered to fire warning shots but of course
| everyone interprets this as firing on civilians, if this is even
| true. It's really sad how quickly people here jump on Iranian
| propaganda.
| archagon wrote:
| Maybe someone should tell that to the soldiers.
|
| "Israeli Soldiers Killed at Least 410 People at Food Aid Sites
| in Gaza This Month"
| --https://theintercept.com/2025/06/27/israel-killed-
| palestinia...
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| Sure I definitely believe it. It's definitely true. For sure.
| archagon wrote:
| It's such a shame that you get to face zero consequences
| for your repugnant dismissal if you're wrong.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| Funny how an article about how hamas murdered a bunch of aid
| workers the other day didn't make front page here let alone any
| front page, yet this of course shoots right to top. No bias here
| of course!
|
| P.s https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/11/middleeast/israel-gaza-ghf-
| at...
|
| I submitted this let's see how quickly it gets flagged!
| YZF wrote:
| Unfortunately it's not funny. There is no coincidence here in
| how anti-Israeli content is constantly promoted and the what
| the comment threads turn into.
| jekwoooooe wrote:
| There's only one opinion allowed on the internet now. If
| Israel let a mob grab all the aid the news would slam them
| for not doing anything. The demonization is unreal.
| Meanwhile, Yemen killed and raped thousands of its own
| citizens and I haven't seen anything about it of course.
| There's an ACTUAL literal genocide happening in Yemen.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| Oh man that's awful. I support withdrawing all funding for
| Hamas and all other organizations who intentionally kill
| humanitarian aid workers. What do you think?
| worldsavior wrote:
| It's because the internet is filled with bots, I won't be
| surprised if here is also the case.
|
| I also don't see why this kind of article is at the top. It's
| clearly political and is not related to the site's mainstream.
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