Coming from Europe and living in the US for the last couple of years, I'm shocked at how society here is clearly pro-israel.
It is very clear that in the US the life of an israel citizen is valued way above the one of a palestinian. It is sad to lose that level of humanity.
all of the discourse also conveniently ignores that Israel created a large-scale open-air prison in Gaza and removed any hope left for people living there.
What an absolute mind-fuck.
I think the greatest thing the Moscow-Teheran-Beijing "bot army diplomacy doctrine" is showing us is that you can radicalize both the US right AND the US Left at the same time by speaking to each side's idiocies at full throat.
We are nearing Elders of Zion territory here where the ratio of 2 Billion Muslims to 15 Million Jews, and thus the constant stream of anti-Israeli propaganda, now contains propaganda suggesting that we are deceived and in fact there is more pro-Israeli discoursem when in reality it is being drowned out.
Exactly my thoughts on this. Hamas prepares propaganda videos that get shared widely on TikTok, openly calls for murdering Jews globally, and it gets amplified by 1.8 billion people whose holy book calls for attacks on Jews and on platforms that have repeatedly been used to spread misinformation (not just about this conflict). Nobody bats an eye; instead there's a conspiratorial take here as though the Jews secretly control the global social media narrative.
I could not confirm your claim that Hamas called for murdering Jews globally. Could you please share a source?
My feeling is that media controlled by people - like TikTok - tend to be pro-Palestinian, whereas media controlled by institutions tend to be pro-Israeli (with the exception of the majority of ONGs and human right organizations).
it gets amplified by 1.8 billion people whose holy book calls for attacks on Jews
Broadly generalizing like this does border on racism, which definitely does not help defend a country accused of apartheid and genocide.
Article 7 of the Hamas charter.
Sounds lighter than the Nation-State laws in Israel to me. For reference:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
Article 7:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Muslim Brotherhood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Natio...
1 — Basic Principles
A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
7 — Jewish Settlement
A. The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.
.
This does not come from the Quran, which does not call for killing Jews anywhere, but feel free to show me where it does.
It comes from something called the "Gharqad Tree Hadith". A hadith is the muslim equivalent of a blog post dating more than a thousand years ago. It has no canonical value, it's an opinion piece by an individual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharqad
And no, again you're wrong: it isn't part of the current charter either. You can read the actual content here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter#Contents
I would recommend reading more about this because your knowledge of the subject seems extremely poor and ressembles low value talking points you usually hear on talk shows.
If anything, please share sources to back your genocidal claims.
My working theory is that pro-palestine contents is creating more clicks/advertisement revenue thus the algorithms prefer it.
media controlled by people - like TikTok
If you think TikTok (or Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc..) are 'controlled by people' I have a bridge to sell you.
There is no need for Russian/Iranian propaganda bots. Israel does that already for them: Seeing how Israel tries to defeat Hamas by withholding water, food, electricity, medicines for 2.2mil civilians in Gaza or by using genocidal language by Netanyahu and his war cabinet (Netanyahu: „they are Amalek!“, Gallant: „they are human animals“, Herzog: „there are no innocent in Gaza“, and then compring Hamas to Hitler/Nazis/ISIS/Satan) or by bombing hospitals, schools, ambulances, killing civilians by the thousands, then at the same time handing out guns to Settlers who loot, kill, start pogroms in the West Bank.
What discourse you see online is entirely dependent on who you follow. TikTok is not force feeding you pro-Palestine content (and pro-Palestine ≠ pro-Hamas, people who are unironically pro-Hamas are not to be taken seriously since they usually come with other nonsensical takes on everything). Neither is Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, or any other platform where content is recommended based on user preferences. Don't like what you see? Close it or use whatever feedback function built-in to strongly signal your distaste, and the algorithms will recommend less of that. My tech twitter timeline was unusable for weeks after October 7 because many people I follow started posting pro-Israel messages nonstop, to the point where I had to mute them because it's not what I followed them for despite having sympathy for Israelis after the attack from Hamas.
I started getting ads obviously funded by the State of Israel and pro-Israel organizations on Youtube, on Twitter, on Instagram, and on TikTok (for a day or two). There were "Missing Person" posters of October 7th victims in my neighbourhood street which is located more than 10000+km from Israel (I feel bad for them and hope they will return home safe and sound, but what are these posters trying to achieve here in my neighbourhood? My local representative legislator is already supporting Israel and condemning Hamas). I'm not going to stop recognizing propaganda for being propaganda even if I mostly agree with its underlying message. That's a basic critical thinking skill and evidently that skill is lacking even mong highly successful and "intelligent" people on HN, tech Twitter, and so on.
Just to be clear, are you saying this article is false propaganda? Which parts, and do you have sources? I'd like to know full picture before I send this link to people.
I've been watching Project Ask recently:
https://www.youtube.com/@CoreyGilShusterAskProject/videos
It's fascinating to hear opinions on the ground from both sides. Some things I've learned or concluded:
Young Palestinians are much more radical than older ones, who seem more flexible.
I personally think the two-state solution is a non-starter, and watched these videos to see if a one state solution is at all viable (meaning make Palestinians into Israeli citizens with full rights- basically the Zionists conquered the land, but they must also take the people). The problem is that neither side wants this.
Many Jewish Israelis think the Arabs would outnumber them due to birth rate, but recently Ultra-Orthodox Jews have an even higher birth rate, and Palestinian birth rate has fallen (I speculate due to increased education). Extremist settlers absolutely won't have it, and there is rampant racism. Palestinians want the Jews gone from their lands, but when pressed would probably accept those of Palestinian descent.
Sadly, I think we are going to continue with the one state with Apartheid. And, an interesting thing has happened in post-Apartheid South Africa: the realization that they are collectively poor, and not a rich first world country. One example from SA is that the electrical infrastructure was sized for only the whites, now that the full population is counted, there is just not enough, it's a big current problem. Any per-capita measurement of Israel should include the Palestinians to see the depth of this problem.
Sadly, I think we are going to continue with the one state with Apartheid
The situation is not like Apartheid in South Africa.
In Apartheid, the white minority controlled South Africa, and did things like denying the black majority the vote.
In contrast, Israel has a ~20% Arab minority (excluding Gaza and West Bank). The rights of that minority are respected. Arabs can vote in Israel, and in fact there is an Arab party in the Israeli parliament.
Gaza was largely self governing until the Oct 7th attacks. Israel has not shown any desire to "rule" Gaza.
In contrast, Israel has a ~20% Arab minority (excluding Gaza and West Bank).
I'm reminded of an anecdote (probably false) of when someone was asked in an interview why all manhole covers are round. He replied that not all manhole covers are round. They countered "Well, just consider the round ones".
Well Gaza is self governing (or was, until Oct 7th). Israel can't (couldn't) impose apartheid on Gaza any more than France imposes apartheid on Germany by being a separate country with borders.
West Bank is more complicated, but the same concept applies.
If Israel was motivated by racist or other tendencies to want to impose apartheid, they would start with the areas they have full control over. Why would they allow Arab voting if they are trying to impose apartheid?
West Bank is more complicated, but the same concept applies.
"OK don't worry about oval ones. Just consider the round ones."
All this aside, I don't think you understand what is meant by Apartheid. This is coming from a South African who grew up during that era.
separate country with borders.
Gaza does not have borders it controls, Israel controls Gaza's air and sea borders.
All analogies are wrong, but humans use them as thought devices.
Let's just say that on a scale of 1 to apartheid it's not a 1.
Have you thought about why young Palestinians have a different opinion from older ones? The opinion of powerless people is not set in stone, but is often a reaction to things outside of their control.
Direct experience? Learning from their parents? Typical young person reaction to perceived injustice? Dangerous to have a differing opinion?
They have internet, but unfortunately it's not a force for moderation.
Older ones used to be able to work in Israel as migrant workers.
After the 2nd Intifada and Hamas's takeover of Gaza, Israel cracked down on Palestinian migrant workers and began importing labor from Thailand, Nepal, and other countries.
I really wished Israel didn’t blatantly start airbombing Gaza civilian infrastructure and blockade food, water, gas.
When Russia does this on Ukraine, we call them war criminals but when Israel does it on Palestinians we call it business as usual.
The idea of military revenge doesn’t get us anywhere.
Defense is the best offense. Little gains the world made in Middle East stability have now been reversed for decades.
As technology progresses, the drones and missiles will become cheaper and more destructive.
An eye for an eye makes the world blind.
I really wished US provided weapons based on condition of only making precise targeted attacks for specific terrorists.
That means our a big chunk of $800B defense money, funded by our tax money is used to obliterate civilians in Gaza. That makes me sad.
It’s likely this turns into another Afghanistan multi decade war with trillions spent and nothing to show for it. The only winners are defense contractors.
US could have played peace maker role. Be the party to stop missiles flying everywhere. Provided humanitarian and medical aid.
Demilitarize and deescalate.
The current strategy of destroying hamas by destroying Gaza and its inhabitants is pretty stupid.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
What, specifically, should they have done instead?
After an initial military response, take their time and specifically plan and target the terrorists who were responsible and organized the attacks on the 7.10. Yeah this will obviously take way longer and is harder than levelling Gaza but would avoid eventually bringing the entire world against you and producing much more terrorists than before. At the same time also try to make sure that the civilians in Gaza get humanitarian aid, so you remove the breeding ground for terrorism. This approach was also suggested by Jocko Willink retured Navy Seal (https://youtu.be/3O4dW24az98)
But the mistakes happened way before by moving troops away from the Gaza border to West Bank to protect illegal settlements and also supporting Hamas as an opposition to PLO. Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong the world would be a better place without Hamas however your policy has to be strategic and not emotional (i.e. revenge)
What about the hostages?
What about border security?
Doing what you say would basically be letting Hamas have their win. It would absolutely embolden them to plan an execute further attacks.
The game theory is absolutely clear here. When an attack of this magnitude is carried out, you need to respond with overwhelming force to cutoff the possibility of further escalation. Stop it cold.
When Hamas invaded Israel and massacred civilians en masse, an invasion of Gaza was made inevitable. Restraint here is the significant effort that has been taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
What about the hostages?
Legit question and there would have been negotiations happening to exchange hostages for prisoners (like it was done in the past)
What about border security?
What about it? I didn't say that Isreal should not secure its border. The entire reason why Hamas was successful in the first place was because the border was not secured because the troops were moved and Israel's security services didn't take the warnings and threats seriously that Hamas was planing such an attack.
The game theory is absolutely clear here. When an attack of this magnitude is carried out, you need to respond with overwhelming force to cutoff the possibility of further escalation. Stop it cold
First, I don't think game theories applies in this conflict and second when did this ever work in the past? At least I would argue that the "war on terror" after 9.11 was anything but successful. Actually compared to the current reaction of Israel the reaction of the US after 9.11 looks very restraint.
Restraint here is the significant effort that has been taken by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.
That's a bold claim, looking at the number of civilian deaths in that relative short period of time. Yes I know that the numbers come indirectly from Hamas but they were relatively accurate in the past when they were confirmed afterwards. Most people say Hamas to blame for this because they hide behind civilians. However I would argue that it's neither morally right nor strategically smart to killing dozens of civilians for one Hamas operative. Also Israeli officials were quoted with: "We’re focused on maximum damage and not accuracy" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-i...).
How many repeat 9/11s have there been?
The problem is that Gaza is a hornet's nest
Hamas members are entrenched in civilian buildings and tunnels, and they are well equipped to attack tanks, and they wouldn't hesitate to blow themselves up
it would be suicide for the IDF to do a slow invasion of Gaza, the IDF doesn't have such a big army, and this would drag along and allow hamas leaders to run away, and would allow hamas to regroup.
also, the more time passes, the more it gives hezbollah and other actors to attack.
maybe the US army would have enough foot soldiers to invade by foot and check every street, but again, with human shields and guerilla tactics, it's not sure it would be that much better, because US militaries are probably not really trained enough to deal with such a big hornet's nest that is gaza.
It's Incredible how many people here are ok with genocide and ethnic cleansing.
There are about 1.8 Billion Muslims on planet earth. There are about 15 Million Jews on the planet. There are about 120 Muslims for every Jewish person. In Israel there are about 7 million Jews. The anti Israel propaganda and blatant lies on social media is sickening. To someone who knows what's on the ground, reading countless 100% false posts from many (not all!) Muslims and Palestinian supporters is downright scary. Israelis (including myself) try to educate people about who is who and what's right and what is false. This article that singles out Israel for trying to provide its (true) version of reality and facts as nefarious-is misguided to be polite.
Why does how many Muslims there are have to do with anything? Israel is not at war with the Muslim community they are at war with a single country which is not even all Muslim. Seems like shaky rhetoric.
Why does how many Muslims there are have to do with anything? Israel is not at war with the Muslim community they are at war with a single country which is not even all Muslim. Seems like shaky rhetoric.
But the muslim community is at war with Israel and the jews, given the rabid antisemitism in every corner of MENA and beyond, like in Indonesia and Pakistan. Antisemitism is the normal in all these places.
I guess it's also the new normal on US college campuses too.
What a load of BS.
Muslims tend to very anti-Semitic. Not anti-Israel, anti-IDF, or anti-Zionist, but anti-Jews.
I saw many a Muslims quote Quran on how all Jews are evil and such.
And this is so rampant.
Identity is very powerful
This article that singles out Israel for trying to provide its (true) version of reality
Is this a serious comment, or satire? I honestly can't tell. I mean... we're talking about a country whose official social media accounts tries to pass off pics of the Lebanese war as the current situation in Gaza; who posts doctored images to try to disguise executions; who posts edited footage of their military commanders pointing at calendars saying they are a roster of terrorist names. I could go on and on, but that last bit is still too surreal.
What (true) version of reality are you talking about here? And besides that, you do realise that one of the things this article is pointing out is how certain groups work together to punish people who post things they don't like - even if it's just an opinion?
Nevermind, your post simply has to be satire...
the ground
What ground? Kibbutz Be'eri and all the other Israel towns where families are mourning their slaughtered loved ones? Or Gaza refugee camps where families are mourning their own dead children?
I have not read this article. I am sad to see it here. I am Jewish and Hacker News has been my one sanctuary from all that has been going on. I feel a dreadful sadness about this whole situation, and unfortunately I have found that any issue I have looked into in any detail descends into a battle of claim and counterclaim. I have had to just give up and let it play out, not only what has happened and what will happen in Israel and Gaza, but also the battle of words on social media and newspapers. It is too painful for me to interact with.
I know a lot of Palestinians and they don't have the luxury of avoiding the news because they still have family in Gaza.
A couple of my colleagues are VCs who are in active combat in Gaza as we speak. Another VC I knew lost his daughter in the Nova massacre (or is a hostage - they don't know yet). This VC was very active in the peace process and lobbied a very large tech company we all know to open a large development office in West Bank and Gaza and pay pretty high salaries. I also know a lot of line level engineers and PMs from my previous jobs who are drafted, knew people drafted, or knew people at Nova. You can and should oppose war crimes, but at the end of the day, Hamas, PIJ, and other Gazan jihadi groups did unspeakable actions on 10/7. And honestly, I've seen and heard of Afghans fighting back against the Taliban, but I haven't seen Gazans fighting back against Hamas.
What happened on 10/7 was very tragic and I'm sorry to hear about your friends suffering.
Right now 2 million Palestinians are displaced and, so far, 1% of Gaza's population has been killed by the Israeli army offensive. With many more injured, crippled, psychologically scared.
The saddest part? It doesn't look like this horror will end. Many more will die
No suffering is justified No killing is justified
I used to feel like you until I befriended a Palestinian in college. He had to take a year off because Israel denied him a permit to leave Gaza to attend college in the US. He had every document and paid tuition, but the Israeli government did not let him leave.
Since then I realized I cannot just let what's happening over there stay over there. I would want him to have cared and known and tried to help if I were in his place.
Egypt, not Israel, is where most Gazans travel through. Sounds like Hamas wouldn’t let him leave and he pinned this on Israel.
Can you imagine that all it took for her to lose her job was "“Freedom for Palestine”.
That's the insanity about this whole thing. The Zionists don't believe Palestine nor the Palestinians deserve a homeland while many Jews believe they do. Zionism is an incredibly powerful entity that even brought Musk to his knees.
That's the real story here.....
Just saying....
Can you imagine that all it took for her to lose her job was "“Freedom for Palestine”.
Which she said after Israel was a victim of a terrorist attack. Quite tone deaf, no?
Tell me do you think the Palestinians deserve their own country?
Yes, as long as they can avoid shooting rockets at their neighbors. Which is sadly not the case right now
Most of the top comments here are against Israel, the country that is defending itself against Hamas-ISIS. I think the bias in this discussion is a direct illustration of Sam Altmans tweet from yesterday:
https://twitter.com/sama/status/1732925866836210151
"for a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed.
i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong.
i still don't understand it, really. or know what to do about it.
but it is so fucked."
Why does only Israel have the right to defend itself and not Palestine? When Israeli settlers steal Palestine day by day why does Palestine not have a right to exist and only Israel does?
When Israel imprisons Palestinians for years without charging them with crimes and there is documented proof of them raping and torturing them [1] why doesn't Palestine have the right to defeat Israel to make sure that never happens again?
Why isn't everything Israel wants also allowed for Palestinians?
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-resigned-us-state...
It is a disgusting waste of my tax dollars to send it to an imperialist group trying to settle an area that was never theirs. Journalists are killed more by Israel than the rest. Why, if they were satisfied and confident they are correct? Those are the actions of guilty souls. Same for the ADL; they hide behind accusations of anti-semitism if you criticize them at all. They have weak positioning and simply want to genocide other groups. No better than ISIS and the Taliban as far as I'm concerned.
Money sent to Israel could have gone to Ukraine. Instead, Americans sponsored the massacre of innocent Gazans. I didn't vote for that, most of us didn't vote for that. Why should we accept it, or approve of Israel's genocidal war? The least they could do is be honest about how much they hate people showing the world the truth.
I truly have no respect or love in my heart for human beings who are comfortable killing to cover up their war crimes. As an American I'm sick of my tax dollars going to a bunch of desert conflicts that won't improve life for anyone.
This is not surprising at all.
I feel like we had this war's WMD moment and its just not being covered!
The Al-Shifa hospital is a pretty interesting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital
In 2014 it was called "...a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices." From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/while-israe...
The US and Israel claim that the hospital is again being used by Hammas: https://web.archive.org/web/20231205215049/http://www.reuter...
"Hamas is using bunkers built by Israel under Al-Shifa Hospital, former Israeli prime minister says" From: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-wa...
Israel takes the hospital: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67436154 and this is one of the few reports from the time. I find it odd that there is more coverage on getting there then on everything they found (or did not find).
It takes almost a week to get footage of the "tunnel" that they found: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/19/idf-israel-arm...
I have yet to see a diagram, or some solid on the ground reporting. I hear mixed messages that the tunnel is on the "hospital compound" or was found "Under a wall" that the tunnel is under the hospital or to a pharmacy next door. I get that there is a fog of war, but the BBC and CNN and all our other normal news sources just quit covering or explaining at that point.
Israel has a history of bombing hospitals (2014): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/gaza-crisis-un... so not exactly the first time this sort of thing has gone on.
I would love for someone to COVER this, to explain what happened, what went right and what went wrong. To put all the peices in one place and paint a more accurate picture, because right now there isn't one, and I think that's indicative of this entire war.
The discussion is open, looking at Israel is not looking at the whole information war.
- Is TikTok Really Boosting Pro-Palestinian Content? [1]
- TikTok: ‘The biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis’ says actor Sacha Baron Cohen [2]
- Apple, Disney and IBM to pause ads on X after antisemitic Elon Musk tweet [3]
- How Bad Is Antisemitism Online? It’s Increasingly Hard to Know. [4]
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/right-...
[2] https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/11/20/tiktok-the-bigge...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/17/elon-musk...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/technology/israel-hamas-w... [4]
I recommend to add to this thread the pro-Israel Twitter user: Shaun Maguire: https://twitter.com/shaunmmaguire and one of his latest thread is: https://twitter.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1733251364787302553
BTW, I added the "In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas" thread to see how it goes [1].
I have no skin in this game but I have a lot of Jewish friends.
I have two conclusions:
- Whoever is in charged for this "pro-Israel" information war failed miserably. Even in Jewish communities.
- Putin is clearly the winner here.
The mistakes are the following:
- They focused way too much on the mainstream media. And nearly nothing on TikTok, forums, etc.
- They did nothing about China's and Russia's influence and their own info-war.
- They assumed Biden is popular - or maybe they hoped his support will help in public. It did not.
- They pushed "canceling" but public option about canceling changed considerable in last 6 months.
Very illuminating information - now reading this ABC article about what is happening on university campuses and the pressure that university presidents are under is seen in an entirely new light.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/uproar-university-presidents-remar...
What is the story here? That Israelis try to defend themselves online?
The fact that it is a story at all is concerning.
Why can't I downvote this article here? There is only an upvote button.
It became clear very quickly this October that the whole issue of the conflict got a very different (more censorious) treatment here on HN than around the world.
That was such a depressing and infuriating experience for me that it turned watching the censorship play out into my main interest in HN for a few weeks, and eventually turned me off of the site altogether.
I understand some of the tensions at play for moderators here and the kind of online space they want to facilitate, and the work that controversial topics put on small moderation teams. But it still ultimately damaged my relationship with this site and broke my habit of frequently using it. I can't be the only one.
It's no wonder that when the moderation team finally decided that a post closely relating to this conflict deserves to remain on the front page, it shot up into the thousands of comments. I appreciate this post's presence here, and I hope the discussion stays manageable.
I wonder how many people will be doxxed for their comments here on this very post, just like Carey in the OP.
This [1] is why the Palestinians are winning the information war among the people that still have a well-functioning soul. And, of course, the fact that the Tsahal has already annihilated thousands of Palestinians kids ("people under 18 years of age", to use the BBC euphemism) and is planning to annihilate thousands more.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/18dp0jp/mental...
I thought I'd get some better take on the situation here then in the rest of social media but apparently that's difficult to come by. Especially when discussing a 100 years old conflict.
I can't see how any leftist could support Oct 7 events, and call it resistance or freedom fighting in some form. Just for context, if Hamas would have targeted military positions in the attack, then it would have been possible to say they are fighting for some liberation goal. But as this is not the case and they clearly targeted civilians locations like a rave party and villages, it's clear that this was not their goal, but their goal was to inflict terror on Israeli population.
My take is that in this long fought battle both sides made wrongdoings, but we need to be very clear and nuanced about each event. In this case it's clear that Hamas, and I may say that since Hamas is a popular movement, the Palestine public in Gaza in genera, made a grave mistake and now suffer the consequences of that decision as there is very little possibility for Israel to defeat Hamas without causing civilian casualties when they are some embedded within the population.
In this sense President Biden approach makes perfect sense; defeat Hamas with minimal civilian casualties.
The Palestines deserve better, but I think that as long as they stay fixated on the results of the 1948 war, and do not agree to let that stay in the past, there will be no end in sight.
I don't know what's going on, and I wonder who actually has accurate information.
Speaking as an early online person, who has long believed in the democratizing power and goodness potential of the Internet... Contemporary "social media" are usually wastelands, both of rampant manipulation, and of people who haven't yet learned critical thinking nor even seen much examples of same.
I would like to call for there to once again be eminently credible and respected journalists, academics, and officials, who research and understand various global situations, and report accurate assessments that people can trust.
Trustworthy experts could answer immediate questions, and also show everyone else by example, how to think and speak better, to answer future questions.
I think it’s been clear to most of us from the early days that the media is the second front in this war in way it’s never been.
“Success”, whatever that looks like, lies in getting the rest of the world to care more about your side and/or be too apathetic or paralyzed to side when your enemies.
That’s always been the case to some degree, but this conflict is dropping on a hyper-connected video world that is new.
It’d be foolish for the heads of either camp to not try to manipulate popular opinion. Sadly that makes it harder—though not impossible—to grok the truth, but practically I don’t see it ever changing for the simpler.
I find it incredibly fascinating that some of the 1000 smartest people on internet are discussing if apple looks like orange, and if orange looks more like apple.
Instead of building things and relationships (which according to our very humble observation can be more fulfilling than building billion dollar companies), the culture as it is (and you can figure out which) is still today so attached to the ideas and conceptions that no longer serve humans and their fulfillment, living in times where no-one should be lacking anything.
If we start discussing if blocking water and food is can be excused by any God or highest of the dearest reason, then we should ask ourselves who brought these leaders to their positions and what is the fundamental flaw in the unfortunate human psyche.
Many of these comments talking about how many pro-this or anti-that news exist are quite baffling. I don't really think that's the point. I think the point is more about the existence of groups with links to private companies and even government(s?) who actively seek to punish people who post views and opinions they don't like. And this is supposedly is in a democracy, not dictatorship, or religious state.
I'm not sure why author is surprised by this. There is enormous amount of propaganda from another side too. This is how war is done today.
Sadly today our narratives are shaped by algorithms and I'm afraid that most of the people are not very well aware of that.
Not gonna lie. That gives me mild anxiety.
Journalists live dangerously in an information war:
https://www.afp.com/en/inside-afp/journalists-killed-and-inj...
Ok heres my thoughtful comment: It doesnt matter what Israel says or does from this point forward, nothing can undo the genocide they have committed.
There's so much semantic discussion on anti semitic, pro Israel, etc. What I see is two groups of people fighting for a long time, one with orders of magnitude more fire power who does not hesitate to drop it on civilians willy as a show of force.
I just don't want my tax money to fund these weapons
I appreciate this post not yet being removed. The HN discussion often can contain nuggets of insight which are lacking from the “media”.
The challenge of balancing equity, justice, and personal security, and how conversations around this challenge are positioned is certainly not unique to the conflict in Israel/Palestine. I’d love to hear thoughts about how to have these conversations in ways that will lead to long term growth/positive change…
I find this supposed expose profoundly underwhelming. So a bunch of people collaborated on private channels to promote a point of view? That happens about 10 thousand times per week. We're all living in nested, overlapping and opposing conspiracies that express themselves on social media and in policy. And of course, the people supporting Palestine or Hamas or whatever are doing the same. So what?
Israel is an Apartheid State long before killing 20 000 people in the past 2 months. Israel will never get the peace they seek with the oppression they inflict.
* Illegal Settlers living in Palestine can vote in Israel but not Palestinians; Israeli settlers all the rights of being a citizen of Apartheid Israel while the Palestinian neighbour doesn't have any. Apartheid South Africa did the same, they put the people in their own "country" and so couldn't vote. Israel doesn't want 2 states as that would mean millions more voting.
* There were 5,248,185 Palestinian refugees neighbouring countries in 2020; that's equal to half the population of Israel. Israel is committing genocide in trying to ethnically cleanse the land.
* Israel has ethnically cleansed and fragmented areas into [isolated cantons divided by Israeli settlements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_enclaves), and implemented [lebensraum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum) tactics. This was called [Bantustans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan) in South Africa.
* The Apartheid Separation wall - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/73/81/d07381fffef632350bcb...
* The settlers killing in the West Bank, and burning homes to get rid of people and destroying olive tree groves.
* They control the water completely - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
* They get 12 hours of electricity a day - https://www.ochaopt.org/page/gaza-strip-electricity-supply
* Palestinians didn't have 3G until 2018, their access is also spied on and restricted.
* Segregated road system - https://s3.amazonaws.com/VP2/visuals/en/4db97391fe7cb2462249...
* 50% of Palestinians are children.
As someone from South Africa, I've seen ethnic cleansing and Israel is doing worse. Israel is absolutely an Apartheid state. Various human rights organisations have already stated this.
Not to mention the Israeli government's rhetoric of calling Palestinians rats and that their lives are less important than an Israeli's. Hamas wouldn't exist if not for Apartheid Israel's actions, in the same way uMkhonto we Sizwe doesn't exist now that Apartheid has been disbanded in South Africa.
And it seems in the comments here and elsewhere on the interent, Zionism is conflated with antisemitism. Zionism is extreme nationalism (at the expense of innocent Palestinians), not anti-Jew.
I think the frustrating thing about the “information space” is that through a sum of “intentionally manipulative,” “willfully ignorant,” and “poised to attack you” voices, the whole space is pretty useless if your goal is to try to reconcile your strong emotions and thoughts on deeply nuanced, complex issues.
I’m inclined, more than ever, to just stay quiet, but as a social animal that’s exceedingly uncomfortable.
We must remember this: The credibility of both sides in a war is more than suspect. i.e., incomplete information, pure B.S., or propaganda. "The first casualty of war is the truth." This has been stated throughout history back to Aeschylus og Greece circa 550 BC.
https://www.societyofeditors.org/soe_blog/the-first-casualty...
HN is absolutely disgusting on this one. Yes, I’m telling you, the guy who’s gonna see this comment before it gets shadowbanned.
Everyone, just a reminder: History exists. But ofc, you have a smartphone, don’t you? Oh, someone tweeted something, lemme check!
Why does dang resurrect these flamebait threads to carry water for PG?
I think a lot of Americans either consciously or subconciosuly see the similarity between Israel's situation and the US's with regards to the natives. If there was a native independence movement that resorted to terrorism the us would flatten every reservation in the country.
There's definitely a similarity, but no, modern US would not behave like modern Israel is behaving. Our response to the 2020 riots was extremely hands-off relative to the level of violence of the rioters (who, in one instance, took cobtrol by force of a section of a major US city, declared secession, and held the area for several days [0]).
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Occupied_Protes...
The 2020 riots were nowhere close to October 7th. You think that if a native american separatist group committed a 9/11 level attack the US response would be "hand off"?
We would have responded with much more force, but we would not have carpet-bombed Arizona. We didn't send out the bombers after Oklahoma City, either.
There was the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia.
If there were indigenous guerilla forces with popular bases of support in some reservations I don't doubt that we'd see the use of bombs and tanks.
It seems like Hamas values one Palestinian less than one Israeli. This is based on prisoner exchanges. Hamas gives up one Israeli prisoner for more than one Palestinian. Most recently it was 2:1, but historically it was 100:1 or more.
This is silly right? It isn’t like Hamas demanded this ratio, or that they forced Israel to accept. Should Hamas refuse out of principle if Israel gave them prisoners for free?
On the contrary it seems more like a power play on Israel’s part. “Take our prisoners we will just defeat them again!”
thats exactly what its like. If israel wanted their hostages back they needed to give up twice as many palestinian prisoners.
Israel is the United States' colonial outpost and our leaders know it. Our press knows it. That influences the public discourse, especially that which flows from official channels and major news outlets. And Israel has a huge lobby here to reinforce all that.
There's a religious dimension, too. Some kinds of Protestants see a modern Jewish state in Palestine as a precondition for the Second Coming of Christ, and actively want to urge that by supporting Israel. This is very common among religious fundamentalists in much of the US.
This is, by the way, exactly what President Biden was getting at on the Senate floor decades before his presidency when he said that 'if Israel did not exist, the United States would have had to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLNCcLfIkM
To understand why, see the documentary: The Occupation of the American Mind by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp.
It is available for free on their official website: https://www.occupationmovie.org.
For someone, who is coming from Europe it strange, that you did not notice a slow, but steady rise in right politics in Europe, but was very quick to notice the US bias.