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ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

locallost
352 replies
20h46m

My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin

Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246

Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.

Quote:

"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."

And

"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."

pgeorgi
294 replies
20h39m

All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?

This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.

anon84873628
112 replies
19h39m

All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

And then everyone who wants peace invests lots of money and expertise over a long time to build a modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society, despite whatever setbacks, attacks, and sabotage occur from within and without.

The only way to have peace is to give people a better option than becoming terrorists.

mderazon
59 replies
19h6m

This is looking at the conflict from western eyes. Religious fundamentalists don't think like that

nojvek
41 replies
18h58m

We could have said this about Germany and Japan after WWII.

Every human no matter their race and religion cares about having food, water, safety, opportunity, live in a law abiding society where their rights are respected and they get “some” choice to vote for their future.

bitcurious
19 replies
18h42m

Germany and Japan were conquered and unconditionally surrendered, after massive civilian casualties. Nazis were tried and executed. If Israel is should model itself on those examples, it's doing the right and moral thing in waging war until Hamas is destroyed, or unconditionally surrenders.

Ozzie_osman
5 replies
16h58m

This myth that Hamas can be destroyed and that if they are, everything will be alright, is completely disproven by the fact that there is no Hamas in the West Bank and Israeli extremists continue to perpetrate crimes there.

weatherlite
2 replies
15h58m

There's also the myth that settlers are responsible for all Palestinian grievances. There are no settlers in Gaza since 2005.

Ozzie_osman
1 replies
15h51m

Gaza has been effectively under blockade since then too. Maybe that's a contributing factor? Or maybe there are other common factors?

weatherlite
0 replies
15h49m

Hamas is trying to kill as many Israelis as it can, maybe that's a contributing factor to the blockade.

yon109
0 replies
16h4m

Where are you getting the idea that tbere is no Hamas in the West Bank? There are very much Hamas militants there that would love nothing more than to commit another Oct. 7th.

wahnfrieden
0 replies
16h41m

With the support of IDF collaboration (and funding from private US organizations). Downvoters don’t like the facts I guess.

danenania
4 replies
18h3m

The point is that it’s possible for relations to improve over time even when previous generations were bitter enemies. There are plenty of other examples in history apart from WW2.

Investing heavily in Palestine is likely Israel’s cheapest option for stability in the long term. They certainly aren’t going to bomb their way to stability.

If they had gone after Hamas leadership specifically with targeted operations while increasing humanitarian aid, rather than terrorizing the entire population of Gaza, they would have had the world and likely a decent percentage of Palestinians on their side. Instead they have utterly and completely botched it and put themselves in a terrible situation strategically.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
15h45m

gone after Hamas leadership specifically with targeted operations while increasing humanitarian aid, rather than terrorizing the entire population of Gaza

The aid was going first to fighters, then to stockpiles, then to the people. To the extent it could be traded for weapons it was. Now we’re seeing allegations UNRWA employees participated in the October 7th attacks [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/world/middleeast/un-aid-i...

imtringued
1 replies
6h13m

So you're telling me they have an easy way to bait Hamas into exposing themselves by using humanitarian aid as a honey pot?

If the humanitarian aid organisations themselves are Hamas, then you could just arrest them.

edanm
0 replies
5h17m

They're in a different territory that has no Israeli presence. That's like saying the US could've just arrested the members of ISIS..

weatherlite
0 replies
15h59m

Investing heavily in Palestine is likely Israel’s cheapest option for stability in the long term. They certainly aren’t going to bomb their way to stability.

Even that is non trivial. Money going into Gaza first goes through Hamas. After buying arms and building expensive tunnels, and paying its men, the leftovers go to the rest of the population.

adhamsalama
3 replies
18h3m

Ethnically cleansing a population is not right or moral in any case whatsoever.

gafferongames
2 replies
16h2m

Hamas's stated aim and goal is to destroy Israel and ethnically cleanse Palestine of the jews "from the river to the sea".

When somebody tells you they want to destroy you, over and over for years, and then builds up terror factories and uses it to intentionally target women, children and elderly civilians on Oct 7, maybe -- just maybe, Israel has no choice other than to deal with Hamas as they are.

falserum
0 replies
14h5m

It’s their prime minister who has no choice. As soon as war ends, he is out.

Oct events could have been prevented by military presence at the border.

A4ET8a8uTh0
0 replies
5h41m

<< Israel has no choice other than to deal with Hamas as they are.

Maybe. Recent drone strike in Lebanon suggests that Israel is rather capable to strike surgically if it is so desires. In Gaza, it does not appear to strike surgically suggesting it made that choice for a reason.

There is always a choice and few would fault just plain self-defense. Based on the existing rubble, current situation is closer to overkill, which does not win Israel support.

Something to consider.

leereeves
2 replies
17h46m

Germany and Japan were conquered and unconditionally surrendered

Israel has already done that to Palestine, many decades ago, but they failed to do anything like the Marshall Plan to invest in the occupied lands and create a lasting peace.

If we hope to learn from WW2, we should consider the postwar history of Eastern Europe. Like Israel, the Soviets also failed to invest in the lands they occupied, instead trying to suppress rebellions with violence. Now all of those nations are Russia's enemies.

throwA29B
1 replies
15h10m

Like Israel, the Soviets also failed to invest in the lands they occupied

Don't know about Israel, but you definitely know nothing about the Soviets.

dang
0 replies
12h32m

Please omit swipes from your comments here, as the guidelines ask. If you know more than someone else, you're welcome to provide correct information, but please don't post putdowns.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ozzie_osman
0 replies
16h15m

There are two ways to get peace. One is for one side to completely dominate the other at massive cost, and with risk of blowback even after domination. The other is for cooler heads to prevail. Plenty of examples from history of both. And supposedly we had, as a modern world, decided that we prefer the latter path to peace over the former. Hence the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, etc.

bart_spoon
7 replies
16h44m

Germany was reduced to rubble, their population submitted to complete and total surrender, and their leaders were all executed. Japan was firebombed into oblivion and then had two atomic bombs dropped on their civilian population. And both were then completely occupied and had their government dismantled and replaced by their conquerors.

What Israel is doing right now seems to be far closer to what happened in Germany and Japan after WW2 than whatever diplomatic solution you are proposing.

Ozzie_osman
6 replies
16h12m

And the world decided we didn't want to have wars like that ever again, and gave the defeated countries a path to prosper. Sadly, Palestinians have no such path.

gafferongames
4 replies
15h55m

Hamas has spent the aid and all their funds on funding terror. It's no wonder they have no path to prosper. Hamas made it this way.

Ozzie_osman
3 replies
15h52m

There's no Hamas in the West Bank and no path to prosper there.

jdietrich
2 replies
14h9m

Hamas are active in the West Bank and have significant support and influence. If an election were called (there hasn't been one for more than 18 years) it is overwhelmingly likely that Hamas would win.

Fatah are somewhat less politically extreme than Hamas, but they are scarcely any less corrupt; within the West Bank, the PA is widely viewed as illegitimate.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/29/palestinian-authori...

RoyalHenOil
1 replies
9h35m

They support Hamas because they can't see any other potential path to prosperity.

If you want to quell extremism in a country, you have to give them a genuine alternative to extremism. If all of the moderate options get them nowhere, they will reject them.

This is a vital lesson we learned from WWII. Incentives matter.

pgeorgi
0 replies
8h22m

They support Hamas because they can't see any other potential path to prosperity.

Prosperity through Hamas? Only for a select few who live in other countries. With the amount of aid and money thrown at Gaza, any third rate politician could have achieved prosperity if only they were genuinely in it for the good of the people.

Hamas didn't, because their priority doesn't lie in the welfare of the Palestinian people but in the eradication of Israel.

(and potentially not even that: there are more billions to amass while living in the safety and comfort of some emirate when the situation on the ground remains volatile and the Palestinian people miserable. In that case, Palestinians don't even have a "way out" of their misery by completing Hamas' mission, because their misery _is_ Hamas' mission.)

spidersenses
0 replies
7h34m

and gave the defeated countries a path to prosper.

You're not very familiar with the history of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, are you?

HDThoreaun
4 replies
17h45m

Germany and japan returned to their pre war borders after the war. Gaza does not have the land or resources to sustain its population. It literally needs to expand to have any amount of stability.

avmich
2 replies
16h52m

I think the WWII example is really useful here - completion of hostilities and post-war work. Expansion of Gaza may be not necessary at all, looking at Singapore example, not to mention West Bank.

HDThoreaun
1 replies
16h49m

It is unimaginable to me for Gaza to ever resemble singapore. Singapore had massive advantages that took hundreds of years to create and its biggest continues to be its position along the straight of malacca. If singapore was not along the straight theres no doubt in my mind that it would be in a much much worse position today. Singapore actually has long standing hostilities with Malaysia. The only reason it exists today in its current form is the economic advantage given by its location.

avmich
0 replies
16h20m

Lack of imagination can prevent us from seeing solutions. Gaza certainly has advantages - location, population size and age, attention of the world in XXI century among them.

southernplaces7
0 replies
1h18m

No they didn't. Germany lost a large chunk of its eastern lands that was "given" to Poland (but in reality conytrolled by the Soviets) and Japan's large prewar empire in northern China and Korea (since the early 1930s) was taken away from the Japanese leaving them only the home islands. A bit of basic historical knowledge is good if one is going to argue.

As for Gaza not being able to sustain its population, i'm doubtful. It's a tiny territory almost devoid of material/natural resources, but then there are many places and enclave countries in the world that are similar in size, heavily populated and with good standards of living. The reason why: They're not unremittingly belligerent with their neighbors, run by a government explicitly dedicated to the erasure of one of those neighbors, and overall allowed to exchange with the rest of the world fully.

With that said, the hardline stance of Netenyahou and those who support him is doing little favors to Israel either, if a path to peace is what Israel wants.

siliconwrath
3 replies
18h41m

Germany and Japan were occupied after WWII. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/united-states...

wahnfrieden
2 replies
14h34m

Their borders were restored.

yyyk
0 replies
14h22m

Tell that to Prussia. Oh, wait, it's Poland now.

pgeorgi
0 replies
8h26m

Except where they weren't. The German borders after 1945 or after 1990 are unlike any other shape of any German nation (or collection of German states) before.

pgeorgi
1 replies
18h40m

If Germany or Japan is your guideline here, maybe Israel should get a Bomber Harris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Harris#Second_World_War) or a Truman (see nuclear weapons dropped on Japan) on the scene?

People are saying that what Israel is doing right now is a genocide. You have seen nothing yet: With either of them at the helm, there would either be an unconditional surrender by Hamas or no Palestinian alive anymore - and by November 15, last year.

We don't do such things anymore, and for good reason, but that means that these past situations are unsuitable as example for the present.

avmich
0 replies
16h48m

What Israel is doing right now should be viewed from the point of view of the goal of removing the Hamas threat as such. The logic here is "Hamas should go - what's the best way to make that happen?" and from this POV the situation is not too grim. It's obviously best to avoid casualties as much as possible, but we are far from perfect wars.

7402
1 replies
18h33m

I think the allies (largely the US) were able to effect massive cultural changes in Japan and Germany after WWII from aggressive, totalitarian, racist societies committed to military victory by any means necessary to relatively peaceful, even pacifist societies only via:

1) Forcing unconditional surrender on Germany and Japan, whereby virtually every citizen of those countries was convinced that they had lost the war and that resorting to armed struggle for their goals was a complete failure for Germany and Japan, and,

2) A lengthy occupation in those countries that accomplished many things, including the "de-nazification" of educational system.

Ozzie_osman
0 replies
16h13m

This only worked because enough was invested into the defeated countries for their populations to prosper. Case in point, after WW1, we got WW2.

The prospects Palestinians are faced with, as proven by the West Bank, are very bleak, making any peace very very unstable.

vcryan
5 replies
18h28m

The notion that the problem is religious fundamentalists is itself propaganda. The people are just people; the problem is a brutal racist occupation that has gone on for far too long.

megaman821
1 replies
17h14m

Were they occupied or was it an open-air prison? Just throw everything out there and see what sticks.

peterashford
0 replies
14h27m

The West Bank and Gaza are two different locations. The West Bank is occupied and "open air prison" doesn't seem like a bad description of Gaza.

weatherlite
0 replies
15h53m

Yes people are just people and for some people religion is a big deal. It kinda defines their whole world.

mderazon
0 replies
9h15m

It's not propaganda. It's a dispute about land with each side not willing to give up land because it's a holy land that God bestowed upon them

jdietrich
0 replies
14h0m

The "people are just people" argument is rarely (if ever) applied to domestic politics. Democrats and Republicans may often loathe each other, but at least they have enough respect to recognise that their differences in opinion are meaningful and sincerely held.

Many Palestinians are just ordinary people who want to get on with their lives, but some are fanatics. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is the fanatics who are in charge. Of course, the same could be justifiably argued about the current Israeli government; the crucial difference is that Netanyahu and Smotrich can (and likely will) be removed at the next election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_I...

Ozzie_osman
3 replies
17h4m

Worth pointing out that both sides have extreme religious fundamentalists.

Also worth pointing out that peace was achieved between Egypt/Israel but it took leaders like Carter, Sadat, Begin to transcend the conflict. Sadly, Biden is no Carter. And there are no Sadats or Begins anymore.

avmich
2 replies
16h46m

Ask Carter what he thinks about that. I think he'd at least admit that Biden has a huge hindsight - the world today is so different from 1970-s.

Ozzie_osman
1 replies
16h9m

Carter's approach tells us what he would think. Carter was willing to give the Israelis and the Egyptians massive amounts of aid, conditioned on peace. That is very different than offering one side unconditional support despite that side allowing extremists to formulate and shape plans.

avmich
0 replies
14h51m

That's rather similar to what we have or going to have. Both Israel and Gaza may receive - keep receiving - external aid. The difference is that peace around Gaza, today's and tomorrow's, is going to be enforced more elaborately.

sfifs
2 replies
17h15m

All major conflicts and wars are fundamentally economic and have been so throughout history

tim333
0 replies
5h58m

I think the Gaza war doesn't fit you hypothesis for a start. The Gaza residents could have made it into another Dubai but they prefered to follow a route that resulted in the current situation.

amscanne
0 replies
17h5m

Such a statement seems, at best, a controversial view. For example, I’m pretty sure that the religious aspects of the crusades are generally accepted as the primary cause.

samirillian
2 replies
14h53m

I don't think it's too Western-centric to imagine that Palestinians want freedom, which is a universal human desire. Freedom means statehood and self-governance.

Oppression is fertile soil for religious fundamentalists, and radicals of every stripe.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
13h41m

Freedom means statehood and self-governance

That second bit is a magic variable.

samirillian
0 replies
8h9m

I don't grasp the analogy

Aeolun
0 replies
18h4m

And yet, women in Afghanistan were happy going to university until we let the fundamentalists back in.

reissbaker
45 replies
16h44m

This is not the approach the West took with ISIS, which involved similarly one-sided fights against terrorist forces [1], nor do I think it's an approach that would have worked. When "everyone who wants peace" doesn't include the people in control of the guns and rockets, who instead want to kill their enemies by any means necessary (and themselves do not respect international law), you can't simply dialogue your way out of it any more than Ukraine could have dialogued their way out of getting invaded by Russia.

The ICJ ruled that Hamas return the hostages unconditionally, but everyone knows that won't happen — Hamas is simply unaccountable. "Everyone who wants peace" can't even get the Red Cross access to the hostages, let alone get them returned. Vague calls for diplomacy with terrorist groups doesn't solve much, which is why people are asking you for specific solutions — it's easy to say Israel should stop fighting, but then: what should it do? How would you actually ensure it doesn't keep getting attacked, repeatedly, as Hamas continues to insist they plan to do?

1: Mosul alone had ~10,000 civilian casualties and that was less densely populated than Gaza City and didn't have tunnels: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/thousands-more-civilia...

And it similarly had about 1MM civilians displaced: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/world/middleeast/mosul-ir...

And that wasn't the end of the fight against ISIS!

amluto
27 replies
16h36m

A major problem is that the Gazan people have very legitimate problems with Israel, and this leads to a situation in which enough of them become militant to cause serious problems. Solving that seems like it needs a more wholistic approach than simply trying to get rid of the militants at the cost of causing everyone else to have an even bigger beef with Israel.

reissbaker
13 replies
16h1m

Sure, and the people of Iraq had very legitimate problems with NATO. Nonetheless the West dismantled ISIS. People can have legitimate grievances without committing mass murder and rape, and in fact I think the mass murder and rape committed by Hamas have been very counterproductive for the lives of Gazans.

What would you have Israel do, that you think would result in it not getting continually attacked by Hamas? Recall that when Israel dismantled its Gazan settlements and withdrew its own citizens at gunpoint nearly 20 years ago — in the hope that would help solve the problem — that's when Hamas took power...

ignoramous
8 replies
15h41m

Nonetheless the West dismantled ISIS

ISIS-K just carried out the worst terrorist attack in Iran (and it was primarily Iran's Q Solemani who dismantled ISIS; later killed by the US Army). Taliban rules Afghanistan again.

What would you have Israel do, that you think would result in it not getting continually attacked by Hamas?

Negotiate, like they did with PLO before?

withdrew its own citizens at gunpoint

Yeah, cause settlements are a clear breach of International Law. It was no charity.

that's when Hamas took power...

Democratically elected, then subsequently undermined and later blockaded.

reissbaker
5 replies
15h24m

ISIS was defeated in Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_Stat...

IDK what your point is with the Taliban, since they're a different group in a different country that isn't allied with ISIS. (And are unrelated to Israel and Gaza.)

Negotiate, like they did with the PLO before?

The PLO was willing to negotiate and Hamas is not. Hamas has repeatedly said they are not willing to agree to a permanent peace deal with Israel, and have said that they intend to carry out these attacks repeatedly until Israel is destroyed. In this situation, not a hypothetical one where Hamas wants peace, what exactly do you think Israel can do to prevent being attacked?

Democratically elected...

They won the legislative elections but not the prime ministership and subsequently started a massive civil war with the rest of the PA, which ended up in the PA maintaining control of the West Bank and Hamas controlling Gaza. Which is why Israel and Gaza have gone to war many times, but Israel and Ramallah have not — Israel and the PA mutually recognize each other, albeit with a fair amount of mutual enmity.

ignoramous
4 replies
15h6m

ISIS was defeated in Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition

Yeah and who defeated them in Syria? There were two coalitions. French/US led and Syria/Iran led.

The PLO was willing to negotiate and Hamas is not.

In 2014, in a meeting in the UAE post war, Hamas encouraged PLO to reach a political arrangement with Israel on 67 borders. Then in 2017, ratified their charter again to make that point clear. In 2021, Hamas offered to join the PLO and conduct elections, which almost happened only for Israel to not let East Jerusalem residents vote.

subsequently started a massive civil war

US and Israel encouraged a coup by Fatah by arming and training the Presidential Guard in opposition to Hamas.

Israel and Ramallah have not

Israel has razed Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus just this past month with over 50+ dead.

Israel and the PA mutually recognize each other

PA is a puppet with bare minimum control over economy, trade, and security of its own people.

yyyk
2 replies
14h26m

Hamas encouraged PLO to reach a political arrangement with Israel on 67 borders

And then to continue the war from these borders. Duh.

ratified their charter again to make that point clear.

The one which opposes recognition of Israel and promises to continue the war?

which almost happened only for Israel to not let East Jerusalem residents vote.

This isn't true at all. Israeli opposes PA polling stations there. There are other ways to vote (like having the stations inside the EU consulates, or by mail). Which they already used in 2006, so PA is actually fine with this. It's that Abbas will lose to Hamas and everyone knows it, so he needs an lie that uninformed people would swallow.

Israel has razed Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus

These cities aren't razed by any normal definition of 'razed'. Some people wanted to start another front and got crushed.

ignoramous
1 replies
13h42m

And then to continue the war from these borders

Not a wise move.

opposes recognition... promises war

I think you're confusing Likud's charter with Hamas'?

uninformed people would swallow

Some say Egypt, Jordan, and Israel equally sabotaged the elections: https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/84509

Some people wanted to start another front and got crushed

Truly crushed, or rather collective punishment / war crimes were the words you were looking for? https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/01/israel-opt-je...

yyyk
0 replies
1h54m

Some say Egypt, Jordan, and Israel equally sabotaged the elections: https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/84509

The entire article is about how nobody buys Abbas' excuses (the other link is similarly not relevant to the discussion).

reissbaker
0 replies
14h50m

I'm really not sure why it matters who gets to claim credit in Syria. The point is that the US and its allies used the same tactics as Israel is using in Gaza to defeat ISIS, and I think it's silly to say that the U.S. or Iran or whoever should've just tried dialogue with ISIS. The same is true for Hamas.

In 2014, in a meeting in the UAE post war, Hamas encouraged PLO to reach a political arrangement with Israel on 67 borders. Then in 2017, ratified their charter again to make that point clear. In 2021, Hamas offered to join the PLO and conduct elections, which almost happened only for Israel to not let East Jerusalem residents vote.

None of these things are Hamas willing to make a permanent peace deal with Israel, which they have repeatedly stated they are not willing to do. After being frustrated by your off-topic or entirely inaccurate responses, I realized I remembered your username, and you have previously tried to claim to me that Hamas was willing to make peace deals and continually failed to back up your claims, along with similar unsourced claims and irrelevant debate points as I'm noticing in this back-and-forth. I am not really interested in having this "discussion" again!

Just as then, it is still the case that Abbas cancelled the elections, not Israel, even according to Hamas. I cited Hamas's own public statements, Wikipedia, etc and you are still making this same unsourced assertion that somehow Israel did it. But that's not even relevant! Hamas is very clear that they do not want a permanent peace deal with Israel!

By the way, the "PLO" stopped existing a long time before 2014. It's the PA now.

Israel has razed Jenin...

No, it didn't "raze" Jenin or any other city in the West Bank in "the past month," nor has it razed any city in the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifadah other than its own settlements. It fought a small group of Hamas-aligned terrorists with minimal casualties, agreed upon with the PA.

PA is a puppet with bare minimum control over economy, trade, and security of its own people

The PA is just the reformed PLO, that you were just saying should supposedly be emulated by Israel and Hamas. And objectively it is doing far better on literally all of those axes — economy, trade, and security — for its own people than Hamas.

Anyway, once again I point out: you are unable to say what Israel can actually do to prevent Hamas from repeatedly attacking it, given that Hamas does not want a permanent peace deal with Israel.

rayiner
1 replies
5h46m

Democratically elected, then subsequently undermined and later blockaded.

Right, Gazans elected a terrorist organization to lead them through the democratic process. They own the result.

ignoramous
0 replies
2h27m

They own the result.

Care to divulge more? Seems like you're holding it in.

pas
3 replies
15h43m

Israel needs to treat Palestinians as equals. This should start with not blockading Gaza, rolling back settlements in the West Bank, and so on.

Furthermore, supporting those who oppose Hamas instead of playing the dangerous game that now cost tens of thousands of lives.

Also, it's important to note that there are no guarantees. Even if Israel (famous hive mind, of course) did everything right there could have been provocation from/via Iran and whatnot.

reissbaker
2 replies
15h34m

Israel dismantled all of its Gazan settlements in 2005 and there had never been a blockade at that point, which is exactly what I just referenced in the post you were responding to. Then Hamas took over Gaza, and Israel and Egypt jointly started blockading it. You can't place the blame for Hamas's rule on the blockade — the blockade (and the settlements) didn't exist when they took power.

pas
0 replies
3h54m

Hamas' rule is the result of many factors over decades. Obviously the blockade and every other security measure was, at best, short-term responses to Hamas' radicalization, but overall simply one more blow to the fragile illusion of peace, and simply more heat under the pressure cooker of Gaza.

ImPostingOnHN
0 replies
2h36m

It is reasonable for adjoining countries to control their borders, e.g. Egypt and Israel's borders with Palestine. Countries get to control their borders.

Israel takes it a step further and blockades Palestinian access to Palestinian sea routes, something which isn't just a declaration of war, it's an act of war.

jdietrich
8 replies
14h23m

I fully accept that many Palestinians are motivated to take up arms against the Israelis by a justifiable sense of grievance, but the issue of anti-Semitism long pre-dates the establishment of Israel and exists far beyond the Palestinian Territories. I really don't want to understate this point - from an outside perspective, it is almost impossible to comprehend the depth of hatred against Jews that exists across the Middle East.

Improving the living conditions of Palestinians is almost certainly a necessary precondition to lasting peace, but it is far from sufficient. Unfortunately, we are now stuck in a very stubborn vicious cycle - the Israel-Palestine conflict perpetuates anti-Semitism, which perpetuates the conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War#...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world

endominus
7 replies
13h42m

the issue of anti-Semitism long pre-dates the establishment of Israel

From your second source that seems to not be the case, at least not in serious degree. "Traditionally, Jews in the Muslim world were considered to be People of the Book and were subjected to dhimmi status. They were afforded relative security against persecution, provided they did not contest the varying inferior social and legal status imposed on them under Islamic rule. While there were antisemitic incidents before the 20th century, during this time antisemitism in the Arab world increased greatly." And later, "The situation of Jews was comparatively better than their European counterparts, though they still suffered persecution." There is more detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...

Anecdotally, I've heard that before the establishment of Israel, relations between the two groups were much less hostile. Muslims and Jews would, for example, have their Jewish or Muslim neighbors watch over their kids during holy days when they'd have to go to mosque/temple. There is also a long history of Jews being treated fairly well in the Arab/Muslim world - better indeed than they were in Christian lands where pogroms were much more common (it's astonishing how many times Germany, in a state of high fervor, decided that the most appropriate thing to do would be to massacre the Jews again). Again, anecdotally, the "depth of hatred against Jews" in the Arabs I've spoken with has little to do with Jews and much to do with the actions of the state of Israel and what it does in the name of Jews.

reissbaker
6 replies
13h23m

Jews were legal second class citizens and were treated terribly, e.g. being banned from wearing shoes in Morocco, and when the ban was overturned, so many Jews were murdered in riots that the community asked for shoes to be banned again.

https://twitter.com/TaliaRinger/status/1738328128999575931

And it's not just Morocco; Yemen for example had official state policy of kidnapping Jewish orphans to forcibly convert them to Islam. Baghdad massacred Jews starting in the 1820s, long before Israel existed. The Damascus affair was in 1840: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_affair

Dhimmi status is bad! It's not as bad as being pagan in Muslim countries historically, where you could just legally be killed if you didn't convert to Islam. And at times it was better than Europe, which more-frequently murdered its Jews. But it was bad, and it was bad long, long before Israel. There's a reason Mizrahi Jews form the right-wing base in Israel — it's not because it was good.

endominus
5 replies
12h42m

Dhimmi status is bad!

Except that doesn't seem to the be the case in the context of the time for specifically the Jewish communities living in Muslim-controlled regions? Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi - "Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community. Furthermore, the restrictions to which they were subject were social and symbolic rather than tangible and practical in character. That is to say, these regulations served to define the relationship between the two communities, and not to oppress the Jewish population." There's a section on Jews on that page that seems unanimous in the view that while dhimmi status was not as good as being a muslim citizen, it was a better than what they had either before the Muslims took over or what they had available elsewhere. It's weird to label what is generally an improvement in living conditions/social regard as stemming from deep-seated discrimination.

Per atrocities - of course there were atrocities committed against Jews. Just as there were atrocities committed by basically every long-lived group against every long-lived group in their territories. No one is stupid enough to say that Muslims have never persecuted Jews, just as they wouldn't say that Christians have never persecuted Jews, or that Muslims never persecuted Christians, or that Christians never persecuted Muslims, or that those groups never persecuted themselves in schisms and internicine warfare. But the impression that Islam is fundamentally and necessarily opposed to the practice of the Jewish faith is fairly contradicted by even the history of dhimma. As the first paragraph of that Wikipedia page states; 'Dhimmī... is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmi were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax (jizya) but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation.'

On the other hand, look at how the Jews were treated during the Islamic Golden Age in Spain; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_i... ("The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which, intermittently, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished."). It's hard to square that with the idea that there is this deep-seated hatred among Muslims towards Jews as the GP stated.

My point is that conflict between the two sides is not inevitable, nor is this idea of extreme latent anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world really true. Purges and persecution that people bring up are probably not caused by ancestral hatred, but rather the same thing that causes every society to suddenly fall into itself in violence and accusation; uncertain economic conditions, unstable political environments, natural disaster, epidemics, war, idiotic rulership, etc.

reissbaker
3 replies
12h14m

Except that doesn't seem to the be the case in the context of the time

I think not being allowed to wear shoes and being murdered in mass riots when the Sultan allows you to wear shoes is bad. To my eyes there is very little difference between the level of hatred then and now, it's just that the power dynamic has changed, so I think blaming the Muslim world's anti-Semitism on Israel's existence (like the OP did) isn't really based in historical fact. There was anti-Semitism long before Israel existed, and it's not like it was getting better prior to its establishment — the stuff in Yemen was happening through the 20th century, under Ottoman rule (and plenty of other bad stuff, e.g. "Dung Gatherer" laws requiring Jews to perform latrine servicing for Muslims).

endominus
2 replies
11h8m

This does not address any of the points I raised. You're just reiterating what you already wrote. Here's an abbreviated summary of the history;

1. Jews exist in a region.

2. Muslims take over. Conditions improve for the Jews.

3. Time passes.

4. Muslim civilization declines.

5. Internal strife and conflict. Among others, Jews are blamed.

6. Commenters 1000 years later; "This was caused by incipient hatred of Jews by Muslims."

This does not explain why conditions improved when Muslims originally rose to power in various regions. Again, the persecution of minority population is an expected result of the decline of civilizations. From the Wikipedia article your Twitter source is quoting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Moroccan_Jews: "Morocco's instability and divisions also fueled conflicts, for which Jews were frequent scapegoats. The First Franco-Moroccan War in 1844 brought new misery and ill treatment upon the Moroccan Jews, especially upon those of Mogador (known as Essaouira). When the Hispano-Moroccan War broke out on September 22, 1859, the Mellah of Tetuan was sacked, and many Jews fled to Cadiz and Gibraltar for refuge. Upon the 1860 Spanish seizure of Tetouan in the Hispano-Moroccan War, the pogrom-stricken Jewish community, who spoke archaic Spanish, welcomed the invading Spanish troops as liberators, and collaborated with the Spanish authorities as brokers and translators during the 27-month-long occupation of the city." This is a nation in decline, lashing out at every perceived cause of trouble, like plague-stricken Europeans slaying cats and dogs and flagellating themselves.

Here are some other quotes from that article;

"The golden age of the Jewish community in Fez lasted for almost three hundred years, from the 9th to 11th centuries. Its yeshivot (religious schools) attracted brilliant scholars, poets and grammarians. This period was marred by a pogrom in 1033, which is described by the Jewish Virtual Library as an isolated event primarily due to political conflict between the Maghrawa and Ifrenid tribes."

"The position of the Jews under Almoravid domination was apparently free of major abuses, though there are reports of increasing social hostility against them – particularly in Fes. Unlike the problems encountered by the Jews during the rule of the Almohads (the Almoravids' successor dynasty), there are not many factual complaints of excesses, coercion, or malice on the part of the authorities toward the Jewish communities."

"During Marinid rule, Jews were able to return to their religion and practices, once again outwardly professing their Judaism under the protection of the dhimmi status. They were able to re-establish their lives and communities, returning to some sense of normalcy and security. They also established strong vertical relations with the Marinid sultans. When the still-fanatic mobs attacked them in 1275{note; no source for this on the Wikipedia page, no link; unable to find what this is referring to}, the Merinid sultan Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd Al-Haqq intervened personally to save them. The sovereigns of this dynasty benevolently received the Jewish ambassadors of the Christian kings of Spain and admitted Jews among their closest courtiers."

This is not what I would expect of a civilization that is fundamentally racist towards Jews. I would not expect, for example, a Louisiana governor in the 18th century to appoint a black man to be his advisor, yet we see Jews in the position of vizier in Morocco. This does not square.

Racism is not the most useful lens to view this relationship through. The culture of the Middle East is low-trust compared to post-Enlightenment Western societies. There remain sharp social divisions based on old tribal allegiances in even developed nations there (unsurprising, perhaps; there remain living people who remember that this tribe used to be slavers and that tribe killed our uncle and so on). Lashing out at neighbors who one thinks are being treated too favorably has little to do with race or religion, in my experience, and more to do with envy. It is the narcissism of small differences writ large and exacerbated by actual stakes.

reducesuffering
1 replies
4h5m

Not quite.

“In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant. One estimate placed the Jewish population of Palestine at between 300,000 and 400,000 at the time.[87] However, this is contrary to other estimates which place it at 150,000 to 200,000 at the time of the revolt against Heraclius.[88][89] According to historian Moshe Gil, the majority of the population was Jewish or Samaritan.[90] The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected the Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

You make it sound like they were treated like equals and then only discriminated against many centuries later in a decline. But really, history shows us that they were initially treated well for a few years as they had just been conquered (a classic historical power solidification move) but were then treated terribly the entire rest of the time under Muslim conquest.

endominus
0 replies
2h53m

By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially.

Holy shit that's burying the lede. Do you know what happened in Palestine, specifically Jerusalem, at the end of the 11th century?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade

"On 15 July 1099, the crusaders made their way into the city through the tower of David and began massacring large numbers of the inhabitants, Muslims and Jews alike. The Fatimid governor of the city, Iftikhar Ad-Daulah, managed to escape.[16] According to eyewitness accounts the streets of Jerusalem were filled with blood. How many people were killed is a matter of debate, with the figure of 70,000 given by the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir (writing c.1200) considered to be a significant exaggeration; 40,000 is plausible, given the city's population had been swollen by refugees fleeing the advance of the crusading army.[17]

The aftermath of the siege led to the mass slaughter of thousands of Muslims and Jews which contemporaneous sources suggest was savage and widespread and to the conversion of Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount into Christian shrines.[18][19]

Atrocities committed against the inhabitants of cities taken by storm after a siege were normal in ancient[20] and medieval warfare by both Christians and Muslims. The crusaders had already done so at Antioch, and Fatimids had done so themselves at Taormina, at Rometta, and at Tyre. However, it is speculated that the massacre of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, both Muslims and Jews, may have exceeded even these standards."

And yes, the various Muslim powers at the time were in steep decline; if they weren't, they should easily have been able to defeat an army as poorly organized as the First Crusade was. The fact that just before the crusaders arrived, every powerful leader in the region died is basically the closest they came to actual divine intervention.

YeGoblynQueenne
0 replies
5h33m

Knowledgeable, level-headed and sensible comment- thanks.

kilolima
1 replies
15h24m

For every Israeli Jewish civilian, there is an equivalent Palestine refugee living in a camp (~7mil). Israeli can only exist as a Jewish majority state as long as the original inhabitants remain displaced. So the Gazans are probably not going to be pro-Israeli any time soon.

amluto
0 replies
12h30m

I find this argument to be problematic. The world contains an enormous number of descendants of displaced people. I imagine that most of the US population is in this category, for example. (Most people of Native American heritage. The descendants of the Puritans. Most American Jews (displaced from different places, even). The Palestinian-Americans. Descendants of slaves. Many others.)

Yet most of these people do not consider themselves to still be displaced! I certainly feel no particular desire to reconquer the (multiple!) places from which my ancestors were displaced. (There’s a lot of nuance here. Plenty of people, for example, think that Native Americans and their descendants should have better treatment, especially in land that remains Native American.)

But somehow Palestinian refugees, in particular, have unusual, highly politicized issues. The UN agency involved is a different agency than the one that nominally handles every other refugee situation worldwide. There are multigenerational Palestinian refugee camps in countries that do not grant citizenship to the refugees, and there are people who argue that granting citizenship would do them a disservice. (I don’t know whether the people arguing this are doing so in good faith.)

Also…

Israeli can only exist as a Jewish majority state as long as the original inhabitants remain displaced.

Stories and written records about the Israel go back a long time. If the stories are all true, essentially all Jews worldwide are the descendants of those displaced from Israel. Control of Jerusalem in particular has changed quite a few times, and there are surely plenty of people around, Jews and otherwise, whose ancestors have been displaced multiple times, hundreds of years apart, from the area. (It’s not just Jews and Arabs. Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. Wars have been fought there repeatedly: the Muslim Conquest of the Levant, the Crusades, etc.)

Trying to keep score of the number of living descendants of the various groups who have been displaced from Israel seems unlikely to give any sensible moral answer for who ought to control what part of it, except insofar as maybe the entire place would be better off with a genuine non-religious government, along the lines of how the US nominally works. Good luck!

rayiner
0 replies
5h48m

Their legitimate problems with Israel stem from their illegitimate problem with Israel: that Arabs rejected a two-state solution at inception and repeatedly tried to wipe Israel off the map. More fundamentally, the whole problem stems from Arabs refusing to want to give up any of the territory they acquired during their wars of conquest in the 700s. Palestine is always going to be a proxy for that. (Which is why Qatar is hosting Hamas leadership.)

dmix
0 replies
15h45m

Solving that seems like it needs a more wholistic approach than simply trying to get rid of the militants at the cost of causing everyone else to have an even bigger beef with Israel.

Like giving NGOs money which get funneled into overt terrorists groups by the corrupt politicians planted by the same terrorists? Aka the status quo for multiple decades well before Netanyahu was ever prime minister.

It’s notable none of the surrounding Muslim countries want anything to do with being the neutral power brokers to temporarily help run the state because they know as well as everyone else it’s a never ending hornets nest, that they’ll have as little control of it as Fatah and the various other iterations of “stable” Palestinian governance, who had little ability or interest to quell the extreme violent fringes. Which in every other country in history means control via police, courts, or worst case military… not tacit appeasement and turning a blind eye.

SirSavary
13 replies
16h31m

Note: ISIS was a bunch of European guys who got radicalized and then travelled to the middle east; Hamas is homegrown and was democratically elected by the people of the region.

reissbaker
3 replies
16h17m

No, ISIS wasn't "a bunch of European guys who got radicalized": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State

SirSavary
2 replies
16h4m

Marauding terrorist force that lays claim to an area != the people who inhabit that area*

* I understand that they also recruited locally; that doesn't change the fact that there were thousands of Europeans in ISIS' ranks, along with fighters from many other nationalities.

Sabinus
1 replies
13h38m

ISIS was a bunch of European guys who got radicalized and then travelled to the middle east

there were thousands of Europeans in ISIS' ranks, along with fighters from many other nationalities

Why did you start off with such strong statements but then retreat to this one after you're challenged? Is ISIS a bunch of European guys or not?

SirSavary
0 replies
12h4m

Why did you start off with such strong statements but then retreat to this one after you're challenged?

There's no retreating in my comment -- it's a fact that they sourced people from everywhere. I threw an asterisk on there at the last second because I wanted to show good faith; there's nothing nefarious about it.

Is ISIS a bunch of European guys or not?

It was definitely a bunch of European guys, and Asian guys, and American guys, etc... my point was that ISIS was a group of people from around the globe and not an ideology endemic to the region.

See my other comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39153097

IlikeMadison
3 replies
12h26m

ISIS is 95% of people of African and Middle-Eastern origins. Then maybe a bit of crazies from Indonesia, Chechnya, etc. As well, ISIS was founded in Iraq itself. How is it a "bunch of European"?

SirSavary
2 replies
12h7m

Your 95% figure is incorrect -- approximately 45% of fighters hailed from Africa and the Middle East, with ~31% originating from Europe (East and West combined).

Here's a BBC article https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47286935 and the report that it sources its data from https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Women-in-ISIS-r... if you care to learn more.

spidersenses
0 replies
7h38m

with ~31% originating from Europe (East and West combined).

I think the parent comment was referring to the idea that the overwhelmingy majority of those "Europeans" we're rather people of MENA/Turkish immigrant background, not "ethnically" European.

aoeusnth1
0 replies
1h24m

I looked at the source. Are you confusing “women and minors as % of total” from a country with % of fighters in IS originating from that country?

yieldcrv
2 replies
15h46m

Democratically elected by plurality, where the only competition was incompetent, and still only won by plurality… and hasnt had an election in 18 years, which means 50% of the population has never had a democratically exercised opinion because they werent born yet, and of the other 50% not even 50% of the ones that voted had voted for Hamas

people really act like thats a “gotcha”

SirSavary
1 replies
12h3m

It's not a "gotcha", it's a factual statement. You can disagree with the mechanisms that brought them to power but it was still a legitimate election.

yieldcrv
0 replies
11h49m

yes it is accurate and a rhetorical dog whistle for extremist approaches to making Palestinian civilians inseparable from Hamas

it is also accurate that it was 18 years ago

empathy shouldnt be that hard

Jochim
1 replies
16h14m

ISIS was a bunch of European guys who got radicalized and then travelled to the middle east;

The prevalence of British and American accents whenever the IDF is interviewed was certainly surprising.

mathieuh
0 replies
13h47m

They were trying to present a certain image, I would imagine they put the German terrorists in front of the German TV cameras, the French in front of the French cameras etc.

yyyk
0 replies
14h31m

Mosul had 40k civilian causalties (more than Hamas totals), the coalition just lied about it:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-m...

peterashford
0 replies
14h41m

Israel needs terms with Palestine, not with Hamas

bawolff
0 replies
12h39m

The ICJ ruled that Hamas return the hostages unconditionally

To nitpick, the court did not rule that, they just "called" for that. It wasn't an order so its not binding. It was just a symbolic statement.

At most it was just a way for the court to acknowledge that the conflict is not one sided.

rayiner
1 replies
5h52m

And then everyone who wants peace invests lots of money and expertise over a long time to build a modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society

What makes you think that’s even possible? Name any other Arab country you could plunk down next to Israel that wouldn’t constantly be trying to destroy Israel?

edanm
0 replies
5h18m

Israel has had peace with Egypt and Jordan, for a long time now.

xdennis
0 replies
16h46m

And then everyone who wants peace invests lots of money and expertise over a long time to build a modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society

When Israel left Gaza in 2005 it had no blockade and an airport. Israel blockaded them and bombed their airport because they kept using everything to attack Israel.

If Gaza and the West Bank were given complete independence with no interference, what makes you think it will turn out different and they won't use the open borders to bring in weapons to attack Israel?

wernercd
0 replies
16h5m

Doesn't matter how much people who want peace invest when terrorists who want to continue fighting are in charge. There is no "modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society" when terrorists are in charge.

They have had better options... and still choose the path they are on.

refurb
0 replies
16h14m

That’s unlikely to work. Many Palestinians want all of Palestine back. Not some of it, all of it.

You could draw similarities with the Vietnam War. LBJ tried to dangle the carrot of economic development funds in from of North Vietnam, it didn’t work.

There is a core belief that an independent, whole Palestine is the most important thing. More important that economic development. Even more important than Palestinian lives.

bsaul
0 replies
7h34m

Unfortunately , pouring money in gaza while hamas is in power only funnels it to weapons and terror infrastructure.

How do we know it ? We've been doing that for the past 15 years.

hypeit
71 replies
20h37m

Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.

lacker
47 replies
20h15m

Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.

It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.

gizmo
24 replies
19h48m

No. The Israeli right wing is trying (and succeeding at) making all of the land between the river and the sea exclusive property of the Jewish people. A quick glance at how the borders have evolved since 1948 makes this evident.

Most Palestinians (and thankfully also a good number of Israeli citizens) want a pluralistic solution, without checkpoints and borders, with equal rights and equal representation for all.

A two-state solution was possible 20 years ago, but with the current settlements in the West Bank with 450k or so Settlers and Gaza's total dependence on Israel for water, internet, electricity and many other of life's necessities, all paths towards a two-state solution have been severed.

Now that Gaza has been bombed and bulldozed what possibility is there for a Palestinian state? All records have been destroyed. The courts are gone. The universities are gone. It's all gone.

Israel will accept neither a one-state or two-state solution. By systematically destroying everything Palestinian the question resolves itself. That seems to be the strategy. And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

mkoubaa
8 replies
18h2m

A two state solution is still possible. Why do people assume Palestinians want a state of only Palestinians. Palestine had Jews living in it before and a hypothetical future state of Palestine can too. They are not committed to an ethnostate they just want freedom.

mupuff1234
2 replies
16h37m

Israel has a fairly large Palestinians population and most of them want to stay under Israeli control so maybe they know something that you don't?

mkoubaa
1 replies
15h16m

Many black Americans chose to stay in the USA rather than emigrate to Liberia in the 1800s when given the opportunity. What can you conclude about the situation for black people in America based on that historical fact?

mupuff1234
0 replies
14h56m

Seems like a weird comparison given that arab israelis are citizens with equal rights and most likely have much more information as opposed to people in the 1800s.

Not the mention that in the long term living in the USA was the right "bet", and pretty sure that if you ask black americans today if they'd like to emigrate to Liberia i assume 99.9% would say no.

amscanne
2 replies
16h42m

I feel like you’re assuming that everyone thinks the same way you do. I don’t really think the evidence or history bears out “they just want freedom”. There were many obvious opportunities for this in the past.

mkoubaa
1 replies
15h18m

I know that there are significant numbers who don't think like I do. I am stating a possibility that is ignored as an option. "they just want freedom" is based on every conversation I've ever had with a Palestinian. Did you ask any of them?

amscanne
0 replies
13h41m

I don’t live in Gaza, nor do any of the Palestinians that I’ve known. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the opinion sample is going to be representative for many reasons.

An interesting current data point for me is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the actions of Hamas on October 7th specifically. If someone “just wants freedom” but doesn’t support the slaughter and kidnap of innocent Israeli citizens, they would actually be in the minority — so I don’t think your characterization is broadly correct. This isn’t even considering other historical events and opportunities for independent statehood.

megaman821
1 replies
17h7m

Where is Palestine state proposal from Palestinians so I can read it? Or is this just fantasy made up by outsiders?

mkoubaa
0 replies
15h15m

I don't follow what the clowns in Hamas, Fatah, or the PLO say. But I know some people personally.

Have you ever talked to a Palestinian person, megaman821?

weatherlite
6 replies
15h27m

And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

Do you also take Palestinian leaders at their word? Because if so their strategy is to drive out Jews by whatever means necessary. None of them are talking about equal rights and representations, that's just not how their society works and they definitely don't want that together with Jews.

gizmo
5 replies
12h11m

Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks. Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements. And this is exactly what you would expect. After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does. The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians. When actions, words, and incentives all point in the same direction I'm inclined to believe the words. Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state with state rights nor does it want millions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable. But none of this matters because Israel has refused to engage in peace talks ever since Hamas got elected.

History teaches us that peace is possible between bitter enemies when both parties want peace and stand to gain by it. When one party desperately needs peace and the other party doesn't, there won't be peace.

weatherlite
2 replies
11h46m

Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

I disagree. This isn't Hamas alone, Hamas is backed by Iran. Big proxy armies have been built by Iran and are surrounding Israel - mostly in Lebanon and Syria and now also Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of different kinds of rockets - many of them accurate with big warheads. As for moral support - significant parts of the Muslim world and the Western liberal elites are promoting and supporting the idea that Israel should be dismantled (The Muslims mostly see this done by force. The liberal left by sanctions, but are sympathetic to the idea of violent struggle because of 'oppression').

As for the chances of this working out - I don't think it's low at all. With a patient strategy like this it can eventually happen. They've been at it for around 100 years why can't they go on for another 100? But whatever I think about the chances, I'm positive most Palestinians themselves and the resistance axis supporting them are quite confident in their chances and feel religiously compelled to keep it up.

After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does

This is a Western approach, not how Palestinians think. You either don't read what the Palestinians are saying or you don't believe them. When they say from the river to the sea - they mean it. It's a big part of their national and religious identity, not something they can give up for a small 1967 border state. Sure, they would have had better GDP and lives had they taken a 67 state with no occupation etc, but that would break their dreams and passions and identities and somewhat their religious beliefs. Those things are more important to them them than safety and GDP, as irrational as it may seem to you. I wish I was wrong about all this but nothing I've seen over the years led me to feel like I'm wrong.

gizmo
1 replies
1h29m

The belief that “the other” is fundamentally unreasonable can be used to justify arbitrary amounts of violence. Lets not forget that Hamas is pretty unpopular in Gaza and that most people just want to live their lives and not see their children get blown up. This is not my biased western perspective.

weatherlite
0 replies
53m

We have very clear instances from history where the opposite is true. The amount of senseless wars and violence is staggering. Arguably more often than not. I don't think this is different, we are going to disagree on that.

bestnameever
1 replies
11h52m

Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks.

So has Israel

Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements.

So has Israel

The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians.

The status quo was partially the result of Israel being repeatedly attacked.

Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable.

I think that if this was the case, October 7th would not have happened, Hamas would have surrendered, and the hostages would have been returned.

Having said this, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is highly complex.

gizmo
0 replies
1h32m

When Hamas got elected Israel aborted all peace talks and built a fence with gun turrets around Gaza. No peace talks means no peace.

YZF
4 replies
19h19m

You're correct that the Israeli right wing would really like the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people. Their "success" since 1967 has really been driven by the Arab countries and the Palestinians. The political violence and the wars they waged pushed the Israeli public to become more extreme and unable to imagine a future where it's possible for everyone to live in peace on the same land. I think this is pretty much fact. Rabin who was trying to make peace was assassinated as a direct result of the heated atmosphere in the wake of Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israel, which had the goal of sabotaging the peace process.

I don't think it's correct that most Palestinians want what you say they want (surveys?). And even if it's true, the majority of Palestinians has no means of getting what they want. In areas under their control it's certainly hasn't been "pluralistic with equal rights and representation", it's been more like "I have a gun do what I say or else".

I think the two state solution is impossible but not for the reasons you mention. I don't think we need Gaza's courts or universities. It's also not the dependency on electricity etc. It's impossible for other reasons. On the Israeli side nobody is willing to live with an aggressive entity that wants to destroy it having their own state 5 minute driving distance from all their major cities. Gaza (the withdrawal of Israel and the rise of Hamas and their militarization) to them is proof there's no way that can work. There is no trust that the Palestinians will respect any agreement. On the Palestinian side there's no body that actually represents the Palestinians and there are armed factions that have already said they'll reject any agreement and keep on fighting.

Israel has dismantled settlements in Sinai and in Gaza. I don't think the settlements are the problem. If there was a viable option for real peace Israel would dismantle the settlements (+/- maybe some land exchange around major blocks). Ofcourse the settlements don't help because their existence creates friction and hate and they're sort of illegal.

Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution. It's kind of hard to see now. Maybe we need enough time to pass so we get social processes that take us somewhere better. Also kind of hard to see right now. Maybe Israel will expel all Arabs from the region eventually (or enough of them that they can annex the occupied territories). Also hard to see. Maybe the Palestinians will unite and reject violence as means of making political progress and that will convince Israelis to let them in as equal citizens. Also hard to see. I.e. no solution. Partly has to do with broader geo-political processes, namely China and Russia's conflict with the west. If that's resolved (also hard to see) maybe progress can be made in the middle east as well.

krainboltgreene
1 replies
18h41m

the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people

Not Jewish people, a very select subset of that group: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784649

YZF
0 replies
18h19m

I'm not sure why we have to bring the Ethiopian Jews into this discussion. I think a lot has changed in this regard since 1993 when this paper was published. Ethiopian jews are much more integrated into Israeli society. But yes, this statement is more complicated than meets the eye, but I don't think this particular topic is current or relevant. I.e. I don't think your typical religious right-wing settler has a problem with including an Ethiopian Jew into their definition of who they think should control the "god given land of Israel". They're probably happier with them than e.g. with some more "modern" Jewish people from the US.

gizmo
1 replies
18h55m

I should point out to people who might not be as familiar with Israeli history that Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.

As for the rest, while I appreciate the civil response I don't think we agree enough on the facts to have a fruitful discussion.

YZF
0 replies
18h18m

I'm curious but I also appreciate the civil discussion. Thanks for the extra context re: Rabin. This topic doesn't lend itself to one liners.

cassepipe
2 replies
19h29m

While I mostly agree with you, your point does not seem to contradict at all the point of the comment you are responding to

gizmo
1 replies
19h4m

I don't think it makes sense to talk about what the extremists in a conflict want when one side is a regional superpower and the other side has no army to speak of (that's why Hamas hides in tunnels).

It's about what the parties can actually accomplish. Hamas gambles on international sympathy because they cannot do anything militarily. They have no bargaining leverage either during possible peace talks. I don't approve of antisemitic slogans wishing for the destruction of Israel but the world will never allow it to happen. Never. Zero chance of that happening.

So while extremists on both sides are the same in the abstract, only one side is facing possible extermination.

dijit
0 replies
17h1m

it makes total sense to discuss this: because in effect by tipping the balance of power you don't really change anything.

If you made Israel as small as Palestine tomorrow, and Palestine as large as Israel: the same (or, some would argue: worse) situation would exist and the same sentiments from the same sorts of extremists.

Thats what we are talking about, power doesn't matter, only sentiment and perspective has been discussed here.

hypeit
21 replies
20h12m

Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.

That's certainly not what I want and from what I gather also not what Hamas wants. They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea. They don't want to eradicate anyone, they just don't want to live as second class citizens. Just like how dismantling South Africa did not require genociding the Afrikaners.

YZF
10 replies
19h51m

I feel that's an extremely naive view. How many Jews live peacefully and enjoy human rights under Arab rule in the middle east? Zero. How many in Gaza under Hamas? Zero. How many live in the west bank in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Zero.

So "Hamas" only wants Tel-Aviv "returned", Jersualem "returned", Haifa "returned", from the river to the sea, but somehow in that vision all the Jewish population lives peacefully and enjoys human rights that don't exist anywhere in the middle east?

runarberg
4 replies
19h15m

The West Bank holds the forth largest Jewish population in the world, after France. Now the West Bank is occupied territory, controlled by Israel, so perhaps that doesn’t count.

According to this Wikipedia article[1] there are around 2-3000 jewish people living in Morocco, 1-2000 in Tunisia, and about 100 in Syria and Lebanon (not including the Golan Heights).

I am aware that there were persecutions in the past in many Arabic countries, but the same is true of Europe. Beirut even restored one of their last Synagogues in 2010 after it was damaged, ironically, in an Israeli airstrike.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

YZF
3 replies
18h59m

My point was specific to Palestinian Authority controlled areas of the west bank.

My second point (maybe not so obvious) was about human rights situations in the Arab world and under Palestinian rule. e.g. the Jews living in Morocco can't elect their government because Morocco is a dictatorship ("Monarchy"), ruled by a king.

I.e. there's no Jews living under Arab rule while meeting those two conditions. Being able to live in a democratic, free, country with human rights, and under Arab or Palestinian rule. I was well aware there is some (tiny) Jewish population in some Arab countries.

runarberg
2 replies
18h5m

You could say the same of Europe prior to 1945. However today hundreds of thousands of Jewish people live in Europe enjoy equal rights and democracy.

What makes you think that Palestine can’t become one of those countries if ever allowed to be democratic and independent?

int_19h
1 replies
16h46m

Would it be democratic if it became independent, though?

Hamas specifically came to power via elections, but hasn't held any elections since then under various excuses, so they clearly aren't champions of democracy.

runarberg
0 replies
15h49m

They have tried to hold election. Last attempt was in 2021. Israel prevented occupied East Jerusalem from participating which was a noop for Abbas who cancelled them. Also notable was that EU asked to observe the election, but Israel did not allow that. There have also been local elections on the West Bank, last one in 2021.

Holding elections with two distinct governments and a third one occupying both is not easy. Even Ukraine has difficulty holding a general election with only a portion of its territory occupied and a single government.

But yeah, I think, and I think most would agree, that an independent Palestine would defiantly be democratic.

pphysch
4 replies
16h15m

This just isn't true. There are even (a few thousand) Jews living in Iran, and the Ayatollahs have come out in defence of Judaism proper.

The main problem for Jews in the region is the fact that the certain Israeli factions aggressively conflates Judaism with Israeli nationalism/Zionism, sacrificing the former to protect the latter. Above all else, that makes it dangerous to be Jewish outside Israel or one of its Western sponsors. And even inside. Because uninformed people, and actual antisemites, buy into that cynical framing.

runarberg
3 replies
15h35m

There were definitely persecutions and ethnic cleansing campaigns following 1948 in the neighboring Arab countries, especially in Iraq, Syria, and following 1967 in Lebanon, which drove a lot of Arab speaking Jews to Israel. Israel’s immigration policy was also very aggressive in inviting Jews from Arabic countries into Israel. Some even believe Israel went as far as stealing people from Ethiopia. So a lot of Jewish communities that once existed outside of Israel have now been absorbed into Israel.

That said, I think it is a mistake—and honestly a bit racist—to claim that Jewish people can’t live and prosper in smaller communities among certain ethno-religous majorities today.

weatherlite
2 replies
15h17m

That said, I think it is a mistake—and honestly a bit racist—to claim that Jewish people can’t live and prosper in smaller communities among certain ethno-religous majorities today

How is it racist ? There are indeed entire areas where Jews can't really live normally due to harassment. Even in Europe.

runarberg
1 replies
15h9m

It is racist to zero in on a specific ethno-religous group and say that they in particular are unable to maintain a functioning democracy accommodating of certain minorities. It is the sort of crap that colonial Europe did to justify the horrors of the colonial period.

weatherlite
0 replies
14h55m

There are many places in the world that are not maintaining a functioning democracy, that includes not respecting minorities to Western standards. Blows my mind this is a racist statement to you, but we'll have to disagree then.

loandbehold
3 replies
18h57m

Read Hamas' charter, they are open about their goals: to kill or expel Jews from the river to the sea.

rsoto2
1 replies
15h3m

This is also in the Likud(Israeli far-right party charter) and actually denotes even more land in the region(Jordan) as property of Israel.

halflife
0 replies
14h27m

The likud is not far right, it’s just a right wing party. There are other far right parties. Can you link me to that part of the likud charter? Because the one I’ve read mentions none of that.

gafferongames
0 replies
15h49m

Bingo

pgeorgi
0 replies
19h43m

They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.

What's the word for word translation of the original slogan again? "From the river to the sea, all land shall be Arab" if my dictionary doesn't fail me...

kansface
0 replies
19h35m

The charter of Hamas explicitly calls for the eradication of the state of Israel, the death of presumably all Jews, Muslim rule of all of Palestine, the explicit rejection of peace or any negotiated settlement (with explicit condemnation of the Camp David Accords), and Jihad as individual duty in order to achieve the aforementioned goals.

cassepipe
0 replies
19h33m

That's certainly what you (and me) would very much like Hamas to want but it is certainly not what Hamas actually wants

You can only ignore who they are if you don't listen to what they say

bitcurious
0 replies
18h37m

They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.

What about the rights to elections? Free speech? To be gay and not be thrown off a building? They don't even support these basic human rights in the land they rule, for the people they claim as their own.

Wytwwww
0 replies
19h38m

They just want Palestinians to have full human rights

Hamas certainly doesn't want Palestinians to have full human rights. Regardless of how unjustifiable some Israel's actions are or what one might think about them Hamas is a fundamentalist terrorist organization and they certainly were/are/would be unwilling to extend "full human rights" to Palestinians or anyone living in Gaza or anywhere else.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
20h8m

They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea

This is presumably a one-state solution?

The problem here being the Jews would be a minority in this state. Which leads to existential concerns regarding their survival. That can’t be easily brushed aside. Particularly when members of Iran’s Axis sport “death to Israel, a curse upon Jews” [1]. (Hamas and the Houthis sharing a backer isn’t insignificant.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movemen...

JumpCrisscross
18 replies
20h29m

that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land

I’ve heard this line from people who say the West Bank and Gaza are the occupied land, to those who say all of Israel is occupied land. The former makes sense. The latter is extreme.

like apartheid South Africa was dismantled

South Africa wasn’t as militarised as the Levant has become, unfortunately. As long as Iran seeks the destruction of Israel, itself and through its proxies, any Mandela-type accounting is probably fruitless. (I am open to being convinced otherwise.)

pphysch
8 replies
19h56m

Anyone can go on Google Earth, look at the official UN borders of Israel, then do a search in Hebrew or "synagogue" (obviously not every synagogue is Israeli) or "checkpoint" and very clearly see the Israeli settlements outside Israel's legal borders. Search "Hizma" for a good example [1].

To make it even more obvious, toggle the "street view" layer over one of these areas and see what gets highlighted.

There is a clear apartness between the neatly-planned Israeli settlements, often built on demolished Palestinian villages, and the organic scattering of indigenous, primarily Arab Palestinian villages. With militarized checkpoints in between. Anyone can see it, if they have the will and a web browser.

[1] - https://earth.google.com/web/search/Hizma+checkpoint,+Sderot...

YZF
7 replies
19h40m

I'm not sure what point are you trying to make here.

Nobody, including Israelis, will argue about the status of Palestinians living outside of Israel's border, in areas that are occupied (a terminology of international law that Israel also agrees to, https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation ) do not enjoy equal rights to Israelis (Arabs, Jews, Christians and other) living within Israel's borders. During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections? It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).

"often built on demolished Palestinian villages" - I think this isn't generally true in the west bank, if that was what this statement was about. There are certainly demolished villages within Israel's borders (going back to the 1948 war).

Wytwwww
6 replies
19h32m

During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could

Which was a temporary state and certainly didn't last for 50 years.

It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).

There are no countries in Europe where US is maintaining military bases without full consent of their governments.

could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections?

How is this relevant? The people living in the occupied territories do not enjoy equal rights with the illegal Israeli settlers who have taken parts of them over. It's basically colonialism.

YZF
4 replies
19h3m

If Jordan took back the west bank and Egypt took Gaza back then this also wouldn't last for 50 years. This is a unique situation where the party the land was occupied from doesn't want it back and the party that occupied it doesn't want it and the people living on this occupied land also don't really want it (or at least not willing to make peace in exchange for getting it). Because it's so hard to solve we've been stuck for 50 years. Still the legal status of this territory is the same as occupied Japan or Germany. It's a "temporary state", just a very long one.

In terms of "colonialism" I don't think it quite fits the strict definition of the word. Again it's a bit of a unique situation. If we compare to Europe many of the borders were drawn as a result of war, and this would be no different. The difference is that in Europe the population might have been expelled (e.g. like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec... ) and the area annexed. Another interesting history to look at is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_border_change...

int_19h
2 replies
16h40m

The people living on this land wasn't ever offered a credible "this is your land & we leave you alone on it" deal, though. No sovereign country would tolerate a complete blockade of its borders, yet that is seemingly what Israel expected from Palestinians when "giving" them Gaza.

YZF
0 replies
16h20m

Gaza wasn't blockaded when it was handed to the Palestinians. Only later when Hamas came to power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

EDIT: Just want to add that the reality is more nuanced. Naturally Israel affects control over its border with Gaza and Egypt affected control over its border. Israel has definitely refused to let Gaza operate an airport or a sea port and so it maintained some amount of control together with Egypt. That said a lot of how this evolved was around choices made by Palestinians and the rise of Hamas led to the official blockade being imposed. I do think this was an opportunity for Palestinians to demonstrate how they can govern territory controlled by them and be peaceful neighbors which ofcourse did not happen.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
16h19m

people living on this land wasn't ever offered a credible "this is your land & we leave you alone on it" deal, though

Nobody in the former Ottoman Empire did.

No sovereign country would tolerate a complete blockade of its borders

Plenty of enclave countries exist. The blockade clamped shut when Hamas took power [1]. A coup, mind you, which overthrew Gaza’s fledgling (and flawed) democracy.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

Wytwwww
0 replies
18h53m

the party that occupied it doesn't want it

That's not that obvious considering all the illegal settlements. I'm sure they want the land just not the people living there.

But yes, no clear solution especially considering that the only (non-Hamas) option for self government, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah is thoroughly incompetent and corrupt.

sgift
0 replies
18h56m

Which was a temporary state and certainly didn't last for 50 years.

Because the population in neither one enacted a serious of terror campaigns or "Intifadas" against them. If they did it's almost certain that the allies would still occupy Germany and the US Japan.

edit: Also, until the 2+4 treaty, formally known as the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" was signed in 1990 the allies still held part of their occupational rights over Germany. Not 50 years, but 45 at least.

Jochim
7 replies
15h46m

to those who say all of Israel is occupied land. The former makes sense. The latter is extreme.

In what way is it not? The state was created by western powers less than 100 years ago and has aggressively pursued European and US immigration since then.

The current state of things is an entirely manufactured situation and it's becoming more and more farcical. There's only so many times you can interview a guy with a British or New York accent talking about his ancestral right to the desert before things start looking a little bit weird.

weatherlite
6 replies
15h11m

The state was created by western powers less than 100 years ago

That's not entirely accurate at all. There was indeed a UN decision to partition the land and to acknowledge Israel, but no one was enforcing it. The Arabs and Jews were left to battle it out in a horrible war. Jews were facing the real possibility of a second extermination only 3 years after the holocaust (I don't think I'm exaggerating the consequences of what defeat would have looked like had the Jews lost that war).

The British policy towards Jews in Palestine was not consistent at all, and at a certain point they sided with the Arabs and banned Jewish immigration to Palestine - even at the height of the holocaust.

Jochim
5 replies
14h21m

That's not entirely accurate.

It's fair to say that it wasn't directly created by them but their actions in the years prior did lead to the end result. The UK administered the region and had committed to making it a "national home" for the Jewish people. That doesn't necessarily mean a state, but the result was a rapid shift in demographics.

It didn't help that the UK had also made promises of independence to other groups in the region.

There was indeed a UN decision to partition the land and to acknowledge Israel, but no one was enforcing it. The Arabs and Jews were left to battle it out in a horrible war. Jews were facing the real possibility of a second extermination only 3 years after the holocaust (I don't think I'm exaggerating the consequences of what defeat would have looked like).

I entirely agree with you on the situation that Jews in the region were faced with at the time. One of the depressing things is that despite the proximity to the holocaust, antisemites in allied countries saw the situation as a way to encourage Jews to leave.

I can see how things might have turned out better if there hadn't been so much migration in such a short period of time.

weatherlite
4 replies
13h0m

I can see how things might have turned out better if there hadn't been so much migration in such a short period of time.

Not enough migration if you asked me, millions of Jews could have been saved from the holocaust. If not in Palestine a real effort should have been made to take them in other places, yet no one was doing it - not in Palestine or anywhere else.

Jochim
3 replies
11h25m

I was referring to the period after the war. To be clear, I don't think that having escaped the holocaust is a negative.

If not in Palestine a real effort should have been made to take them in other places, yet no one was doing it - not in Palestine or anywhere else.

Agreed, the scale of the migration to palestine, even prior to 1945, indicates an abdication of duty by western countries. At the time Palestine was primarily under the control of the UK.

weatherlite
2 replies
10h55m

When you mentioned rapid demographic shift, I was assuming you meant the Jewish immigration in the early 20th century that brought bigger numbers of Jews into Palestine and the beginning of the Palestinian rejection of Zionism. There is a popular view that this (or basically Zionism altogether) should have never been allowed to take place because it eventually led to Palestinian displacement.

Jochim
1 replies
3h46m

The early immigration certainly caused issues between two groups and I do think that the decision to support the zionists of the time was incorrect. For many, the purpose seems to have been to reduce their own Jewish populations.

While still a cause of tension, immigration was much lower before the war. The result was just as you said, European Jews were faced with an existential threat a few years after the holocaust.

One of the things I found quite interesting was that Palestine wasn't the only option considered by early Zionists. At some point places like Argentina and Uganda were potential candidates.

weatherlite
0 replies
2h57m

For many, the purpose seems to have been to reduce their own Jewish populations.

I'm not really aware of much European support for Zionism outside the Balfour declaration in those years. The declaration remained a declaration and pretty soon the Brits flipped their policy and banned Jewish immigration. You had tiny movements of Christians Zionists (Churchill was a Zionist for instance) but I'm not aware of any substantial support they gave. After the war the big immigration waves were actually from Middle Eastern Jews, not from Europe. Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria etc etc whose lives became increasingly dangerous. So my main point is its quite unclear if there was any major support for Zionism in the West in those years. Only after the holocaust could you find a majority that supported establishing Israel in the UN.

If you want to dig into this look into where Israel got its weapons from during its war of survival in 48: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_shipments_from_Czechoslov.... From the communists.

taeric
0 replies
18h29m

I specifically think the mixed use of the word "occupation" to imply that the state of Palestine should include all of the current state of Israel one of the largest trust busting tricks in the modern discourse. I think it is natural to think that the Gaza and West Bank situation is bad and I suspect the majority of even slightly western views would agree.

What shocked me, is that there are some on the far left that fully think all of Israel is an occupation of Palestine. More, they got rather upset when I pointed out that that line of thinking is, ironically, in support of people that have shown genocidal intent.

Curious if you have numbers on how many intentionally refer to all of Israel in this way? (Also curious if my take on that is unfair to folks?)

collegeburner
2 replies
18h17m

apartheid is a loaded term of opinion, not of fact. comparing israel to other true apartheid regimes, such as south africa, is hyperbolic. there exist discriminatory policies that ought to be reformed but i do not believe that word is appropriate.

israel does, in fact, exist on some occupied land that she should return, including many west bank settlements. however, there is something to be said for keeping parts as a bargaining chip against those motivated largely by religious and nationalistic fervor mixed with some basic hatred. other parts of her land were obtained legitimately, going all the way back to the first aliyah after the kiev pogroms in which tens of thousands of jews were massacred. many immigrated legally, though the ottoman empire later threw up some barriers to immigration with hopes to limit their numbers. many were later moved legitimately under the authority of the british in mandatory palestine.

legal immigrants are not necessarily "occupiers". there is also a period past which land becomes naturalized, just like most of the world has been taken and settled by force at some point or another. most of the people who are descendants of those ancient conquerors are just as indigenous as those who were there before. i'd venture to say much of israel, while it ought to be shared better, is populated with naturalized inhabitants.

mkoubaa
1 replies
17h48m

All metaphors are wrong, some metaphors are useful. The word "burn" applies to both first and third degree burns.

Characteristics of apartheid can exist even if it is not at the severity experienced by black south Africans. The analogy here has utility, and racism towards Palestinians is unfortunately a huge problem in Israeli society.

collegeburner
0 replies
13h16m

"burn" is commonly applied to a range of conditions. "apartheid" is applied with exceptional rarity, and in common parlance, people associate it with the south african regime. in your analogy, this is equivalent to calling a first-degree burn third-degree

mrangle
0 replies
17h21m

This is a good summary of Islamic radicalization propaganda that seeks to use Palestinian civilians as pawns, with no regard for them. It is this narrative that keeps the Palestinains in prison.

The counterpoint is that you "must" face the reality that this is never going to happen, and that asserting that it will or should is equivalent to damning the Palestinians to the existence that they currently occupy.

Greater Islam does not have an army that can stand against the West, let alone do the Palestinians. All that they have are manipulated terrorists whose actions always cause much more destruction on their side than the inverse.

So I say again, the only realistic and humane view is to take your oppopsite position, recognize the immovable force, and actually attempt to save Palestinian lives via deradicalization and a relocation campaign.

locallost
34 replies
20h8m

If I knew the answer to that question I would be a high ranked politician. But for me it's important to keep in mind what he is saying here and also in another part explicitly: a diplomatic solution is possible and history proves that. So what I can do is reject the notion that what is happening is unavoidable.

saiya-jin
17 replies
19h19m

Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank, be it by forcing them off the land which is impossible since they have nowhere to run and other islamic states refuse them (so much for inter-muslim brotherhood, I guess Iran should take them), or murdering them one by one which seems to be going on now. Or what we had till now, which led to what we have now. It doesnt matter that the other side plays dirty, all sides eventually do. It just doesn't matter for statement above.

It doesn't matter a nanofraction of a bit what government(s) publicly say, those are farts in the wind to be polite, I don't understand why people even care about such PR, its like what Putin says, what does it matter when its clearly said for a specific purpose and truth is optional?

I honestly dont understand the resistance to their own state. Yes they will hate Israel, just like till now they did, just like every single its neighbor since its creation. So what? How did we/they move from this utter hate of neighbors to cca peace? Well certainly not by following the path of trying to eradicate the other, history is pretty clear there. Yes its a bit easier to invade and kill if you want compared to invading a foreign state, but preventing it should be a good thing. Also, US is effectively giving them a blank check, just empty words flying around, I really expected a bit more. A room for Russia or China to step up.

Its like counting some destroyed tunnels or killing few brainwashed young guys mattered in long run, in same vein as say counting Vietcong losses and comparing them to US ones didn't matter. That's whats happening now. What's the plan for rest of existence? I dont see that part, I mean 0. But maybe current Israel government likes this situation, I mean the top guy is former special forces guy, so this is not unusual situation and a bit of blood doesn't matter to them and if there is war people don't focus so much on how effectively he erodes democracy.

So what is this, state-sponsored genocide? Because 100% this is not how Hamas disappears for longer than few months (in same vein al qaeda didn't) and I think literally everybody involved realizes that, this will actually make it much stronger long term, think about all those eager volunteers from places like Saudi arabia. Soviet war was what created Osama. US invasion of Iraq is what pointed him to US.

Suffice to say, when doing grocery shopping I don't buy products from Israel these days, we don't need more wars in middle east and massive refugees waves in Europe. Tiny wallet, but its all I have (apart from vacations but for that Israel was very low in the list anyway).

mvdtnz
10 replies
18h45m

The Palestinian people can oust Hamas, reject Islamic extremism without exception and reform their society to be compatible with a peaceful relationship with their neighbours.

kelnos
3 replies
17h49m

The Palestinian people can oust Hamas

How? They lack the organization and military capability to do so.

And while Hamas hasn't done them any favors, with the way Israel has been behaving, I'm not surprised your average Palestinian in Gaza isn't feeling like helping the Israeli objective, even if it likely would be in their long-term interests as well.

mvdtnz
2 replies
16h39m

They do it in cooperation with the IDF who are determined to do so.

kelnos
1 replies
11h50m

I addressed that in my very short comment; not sure where I wasn't clear. With Israel itself admitting that they are killing roughly 2 civilians for every Hamas fighter they kill, why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?

The fact that it might make logical sense to you or I that they should is entirely irrelevant. We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic at this point. Not to mention we wouldn't have had access to the internet or regular communications with anyone for months now, and only see the death and devastation.

A4ET8a8uTh0
0 replies
5h25m

<< why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?

It is not the same, but in a sense this odd naivety was a similar surprised reaction to US withdrawal and quick rollover of 'local' army in Afghanistan.

<< We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic

I think this is worth highlighting. edit: The reason to avoid war is because it is horrific and can remove all sense from a man.

Aeolun
2 replies
17h54m

They could. But they’ll never do it as long as it looks like Hamas is the only one fighting for them.

avmich
1 replies
16h30m

Yes, while their optics is like this, it's hard for them to get to a peaceful solution.

RoyalHenOil
0 replies
9h20m

It's not just their optics. It looks that way to the rest of the world as well.

When the IDF kills (at least) two civilians to every combatant, and then drives many others out of their homes and into starvation, it really does make it look like Hamas is the only organization that will fight for them. And Hamas barely even does that (seeing as they are a terrorist organization that uses Palestinian civilians like sacrificial pawns), but they come far closer to it than any other organization in a position to do anything.

If we want Gazans to support an alternative to Hamas, then we need to come up with an alternative to Hamas that supports Gazans better than Hamas does. That should be pretty easy; it's a very low bar.

hmcq6
1 replies
17h38m

The average age in Palestine before Oct 7th was 19. You’re asking a nation of kids to be more mature and organized than the Israeli government who is killing them and their families

weatherlite
0 replies
5h26m

You're saying Gazans make immature choices because of the population's young age? That's a first time I hear this. They're a nation of kids you say.

vcryan
0 replies
18h25m

It doesn't seem like the Palestinian people are extremist Muslims any more than the Israeli people are extremist Jews.

vcryan
3 replies
18h26m

Why should the Palestinians leave? Palestinians leaving is ethnic cleansing.

nerpderp82
0 replies
17h44m

I wanted to let you know that I agree with all your comments. Nothing you have said is out of line. Sometimes it is really hard interacting with the HN crowd, when they get things wrong, it hurts, because they should be able to use their big brains to see through the chaos. Take care.

avmich
0 replies
16h26m

Because there's an anti-terrorism operation turned to city war going on, and to be in the middle of hostilities is dangerous.

It's really, really hard for palestinians today, yet just remain in place and ignore all calls to leave doesn't look like a good approach. Maybe we don't know something big, it's possible, but from all information from the region leaving still looks like a better option.

abigail95
0 replies
16h11m

Because it's a normal outcome of war for territory to shift. It's especially justified if you try to invade another country and then lose spectacularly.

weatherlite
0 replies
15h44m

Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank, be it by forcing them off the land

What makes you so certain it's the Palestinians and not the Jews this will happen to? It's the stated goal of the Palestinians and much of the extreme Muslim world surrounding Israel to drive away the Jews and it's not far fetched to see them eventually succeed.

bitcurious
0 replies
18h40m

Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank,

This conflict is taking place in Gaza.

noqc
10 replies
19h38m

How does history prove any such thing? That's neither how history or proof work. Most of the wars that have been resolved to everyone's benefit have done so by the unconditional surrender of the aggressors, followed by amicable reconstruction.

shakow
5 replies
19h21m

How does history prove any such thing?

Because there are Jews living in Germany nowadays?

sgift
2 replies
19h5m

... after Germany was bombed to the ground and occupied for years. Only after that came the diplomatic efforts.

shakow
1 replies
17h57m

after Germany was bombed to the ground and occupied for years

Well, looks like that box is checked for Gaza; can we jump to diplomacy now?

avmich
0 replies
16h33m

Box is not checked yet, otherwise IDF wouldn't have any resistance.

We should try diplomacy all the time, but right now the offer of Israel is unconditional surrender or continuation of hostilities. Maybe - maybe - less atrocious to civilians than what it was during March 1945 in Germany. Diplomats will keep their work; of course everybody's abilities are limited.

paulryanrogers
0 replies
19h0m

Are there Jews in Germany today because of diplomacy? Or because those who tried annihilating and enslaving most German Jews were removed from power by force?

noqc
0 replies
19h0m

After Germany surrendered unconditionally and was amicably reconstructed.

Ozzie_osman
2 replies
16h57m

Who is the aggressor here?

gafferongames
1 replies
15h54m

Hamas on Oct 7th

Ozzie_osman
0 replies
15h52m

Many people would disagree if you look at the history starting from the Nakba.

locallost
0 replies
11h9m

It provides examples that it happened and thus proves it's possible.

krainboltgreene
4 replies
18h43m

If I knew the answer to that question I would be a high ranked politician

The solution is simple, avoiding the solution in order to create a western military power ally in the middle east is what high ranked politicians do.

Sabinus
2 replies
15h40m

avoiding the solution

The West isn't the one avoiding the solution. If it were up to us, two state would have been sorted decades ago, as evidenced by the repeated peace summits the US has hosted.

Israel believe they can't integrate the bulk of the Palestinian population, and there to afraid of attack to live next to an independent Palestinian state.

krainboltgreene
1 replies
14h43m

If you continually provide missiles and prevent a ceasefire in the UN (a rather unauthoritative body anyways) I would describe you as "avoiding" the solution of not settling/attacking Palestine.

The "We were afraid of the people, they might attack us, we have to do this" line wasn't believable in the 30's and isn't now.

Sabinus
0 replies
13h24m

The Israelis would continue the war with Hamas with no US support and a ceasefire in the UN. The US won't sacrifice it's relationship with Israel to try to force a resolution on an intractable issue that doesn't really concern the US, and it's interesting that they would be expected to.

The "We were afraid of the people, they might attack us, we have to do this" line wasn't believable in the 30's and isn't now.

Haven't the Israelis have come under attack from Palestinians since that time for moving on to the land in numbers that made the Palestinians uncomfortable.

consumer451
0 replies
16h19m

The solution is simple

Please explain.

HDThoreaun
30 replies
19h25m

Yes, that is exactly what Israel should do. The "dont let gazans interact with Israelis" strategy was icnredibly effective until Israel got soft on border security. Israel easily is capable of ensuring no Gazans ever escape again. The iron dome is largely succesful at keeping Israelis safe, certainly more so than a long term gazan invasion which would open up the Israelis in gaza to terrorist attacks.

alexisread
21 replies
19h1m

"dont let gazans interact with Israelis" is exactly the definition of apartheid though, unless you're advocating recognising Palestine, and giving them autonomy wrt water, electricity and so on. However the comment "ensuring no Gazans ever escape again." Is rather telling, it implies a recognition that Gaza is effectively a prison - dehumanisation like that fosters this sort of conflict, so really this sort of attitude is far less helpful than say learning from lessons in Japan and Germany post WW2, South Africa post-apartheid and so on.

HDThoreaun
20 replies
18h57m

Gaza absolutely is a prison. Keeping Gazans there is the only way to ensure Israelis safety. Is that unfair? Absolutely, but I dont think Israelis are especially interested in fairness here, theyre interested in their security. You cant compare Gaza to post ww2 countries. Gaza has no economy, and a vastly different culture. There is no path toward peace between gaza and Israel. Not even on the 1000 year time span, because that would require gazan quality of life to improve, and they just dont have the land or resources for that to happen.

vcryan
18 replies
18h23m

Why are we more concerned about the safety of Israelis than the safety of Palestinians?

HDThoreaun
15 replies
18h17m

Im concerned with realistic solutions. Israel has all the power here, the reality is that any solution will be one that benefits them, and hopefully palestinians are willing to go along with.

nerpderp82
6 replies
17h46m

I have spent days researching the history of this. The problem in its entirety is Zionism. The only way for Zionism to remain, is for Israel to be permanently at war. Research Likud, read about Netanyahu, Zionism is the contagion and a Forever War is their answer.

Should the Palestinians have agency and self determination?

HDThoreaun
5 replies
17h19m

Should the Palestinians have agency and self determination?

It doesnt matter what they "should" have. Israel wont give it to them while they think it would undermine their security, and no one has the ability to force them to.

SomeoneFromCA
3 replies
8h33m

Of course West has the power. The generational shift in US is very clear - GenZ openly does not want to have anyrhing to do with israel. It will carry on and increase with everry next generation. How are you gonna sustain israel in this kind of enviromnent?

weatherlite
2 replies
5h4m

I don't know, it's a good question and it might be unsustainable. Another question is how do you dismantle a country threatened by war and genocidal intentions on all borders , a country that's a nuclear power? What's the end game here - let Israel die and hope the population makes it out OK and that Palestinians happily co exist with Israelis? While some use South Africa as an example where this happened peacefully, there are many more examples where this ended up in a huge massacres - Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq etc. The realistic best case scenario for Israel is Israel collapsing and the vast majority of the Jews fleeing alive to wherever they can. Other scenarios are Jews getting massacred in huge numbers and even nuclear war.

SomeoneFromCA
1 replies
4h58m

The way things are going, the earlier West understands/accepts insustainability of current israel, the less bloody will be the end result. israel could even survive as a Jewish state, but that would require massive diplomatic effort of many forces.

weatherlite
0 replies
4h40m

I think better plans need to be made for dismantling a country (that's what you're aiming at right?) in such a volatile part of the world. It can already be extremely bloody, as I said there are genocidal threats against Israel on all borders and Israel as a nuclear power can become genocidal too if it feels its own people are at risk of a second holocaust. Simply crippling Israel's economy so it collapses and hoping for the best sounds like a very bad idea to me.

nerpderp82
0 replies
16h55m

Sure it does! If we can't agree on what should be, we can never make anything happen. And we all do have agency on how the Palestinians are treated. To deny that is to be complicit.

int_19h
5 replies
16h31m

Israel can be forced into concessions just as South Africa was, if external actors - most notably, US - stop bankrolling them, and start applying sanctions instead. It only has all the power because others let it have that power, and even contribute directly to increasing said power.

HDThoreaun
4 replies
16h16m

I disagree. Israel is self sufficient and has a much stronger economy than SA ever did. Israel also now has substantial oil reserves which makes sanctions difficult. Israels military is completely sufficient and would be able to oppress palestine just fine without international support. In my estimation the only thing sanctions would do is push Israel toward its final solution to the palestinian problem as they no longer see a downside to ending the issue once and for all.

Israel has nuclear weapons, its not possible to actually force them to do anything.

weatherlite
2 replies
4h55m

We don't have much oil, we do have gas reserves. Whatever you fill up your car with - we don't have. Last I heard we import our oil from Azerbijan - a friendly Muslim country with common enemies. Also most calories e.g food are imported. Most agricultural fertilizers, chips and electronics for missiles, cars etc etc. There is talk now in Israel of becoming more independent - especially in regards to arms, but it's going to take a long time and I'm not positive how well Israel can make it. It's a very small country after all. Israel needs to deal with Iran who is supported by Russia and to a lesser extent by China. How long can Israel make it alone against the world's biggest superpowers without the U.S on its side?

And even if Israel can make it like North Korea, I don't think most Israelis would want that kind of life of being completely isolated from the world. If Israeli existence is reduced to isolation and extreme poverty - most would give up I think.

mlrtime
1 replies
2h32m

don't think most Israelis would want that kind of life of being completely isolated from the world.

I've never been to Israel but have friends there. I disagree with 'most', they are very resilient and will not leave their home. I offered my home to one mother with a newborn while they were living in a bunker. They would rather stay at home with rockets hitting them than flee.

weatherlite
0 replies
2h27m

Interesting take. We're just speculating here, it's a very extreme scenario so hard to say. The reason I'm skeptic about it is that most Israelis got used to quite high standards of living - comparable to say France or UK (gdp wise). Complete isolation would bring Israel to the standards of living it had in the 50s. But your point is important - some Israelis will certainly not give up no matter what.

Sabinus
0 replies
12h53m

In my estimation the only thing sanctions would do is push Israel toward its final solution to the palestinian problem as they no longer see a downside to ending the issue once and for all.

Now that's an interesting thought, I hadn't considered that as a consequence of the US pushing too hard.

vcryan
0 replies
17h23m

Israel doesn't doesn't have to use its power for ethnic cleansing and genocide forever.

mkoubaa
0 replies
17h45m

I agree, any solution that is unpopular to Israelis will be opposed by their democratically elected government that happens to have the military power to prevent it. Even if people elsewhere don't like it

halflife
1 replies
14h13m

Because the Palestinian government in Gaza kidnaps babies. And they claimed they would do it again and again until all of Israel is Palestine. You haven’t heard anything even remotely as dangerous from Israeli official statements, let alone action.

alexisread
0 replies
9h30m

Erm, https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/22/23972908/pales...

Children are detained for years under this law.

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/20/bezalel-smotrich-jordan-gre...

This is incitement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-67926799

Denying access to water is a war crime, and is acknowledged to have happened here.

There are links here, where are yours to prove your assertions?

weatherlite
0 replies
5h9m

Is that unfair? Absolutely

What's fair to you then? What's the fair solution?

mderazon
7 replies
19h8m

I think you have a slight misconception about living under Iron Dome.

It's not 100% effective and you still have to run to the nearest shelter. In some areas close to Gaza, you have less than 10 seconds to run to the shelter.

So I wouldn't consider that "normal life" by any standards

HDThoreaun
6 replies
19h0m

There are no 100% effective solutions here. Ive spent a considerable amount of time in Israeli and realize living under the iron dome isnt ideal, but it is the best Israel can do. Long term occupation would lead to more Israeli deaths than a return to the pre october 7th status quo. The only other solution for israel is a legitimate genocide of all Palestinians, and I just dont see that happening in the next century.

smoothjazz
5 replies
18h53m

The only other solution for israel is a legitimate genocide of all Palestinians, and I just dont see that happening in the next century.

Or giving Palestinians full rights and reparations for the land they stole, that is a valid and quite frankly, the best option.

HDThoreaun
4 replies
18h48m

Israel will never give Palestinians full rights, theyre too scared of palestinian terrorism. And for good reason, there is every reason to believe that palestinians will never accept peace with israel. And thats before we even get to the Israeli government believing they have a god given right to the west bank.

Israel stole almost all of the palestinians land. I just cant believe palestinians would ever forget that, I know that I sure wouldnt.

Aeolun
2 replies
17h38m

And for good reason, there is every reason to believe that palestinians will never accept peace with israel.

Not with that attitude they won’t. I’m convinced most people in the region would be happy with peace, whatever form it takes, because they just want to live their lives. Of course that’s contingent on not being oppressed

HDThoreaun
1 replies
17h26m

most people in the region would be happy with peace

Unfortunately that's not good enough for Israel. If they give Palestinians sovereignty and give up their security control it would only take a small group to commit terrorist attacks against Israel, so they wont do it unless theyre very confident that no one is Palestine will want to do that.

Aeolun
0 replies
17h7m

It always takes only a small group to commit terrorist acts. That’s true everywhere across the world. Most countries accept that difficulty as the price of freedom.

smoothjazz
0 replies
18h39m

You said the only other solution is genocide (which you thankfully say you don't see happening this century). Relenting from their occupation is another solution. I agree with your assessment of their state of mind though.

Aeolun
16 replies
18h6m

All correct and yet, what should happen?

Happy, fed, employed people do not become terrorists. They have too much to lose.

HDThoreaun
9 replies
17h43m

Too bad gaza has no land or economy to feed and employ themselves.

avmich
7 replies
16h23m

Doesn't mean they can't build it.

HDThoreaun
6 replies
16h20m

Building land is quite difficult. Building an economy is almost impossible when under a blockade, and Israel has no reason to end it.

avmich
5 replies
15h8m

Israel is the one who's going to build it. See, the approach is the following: eliminate Hamas, then start a sort of deprogramming the society, similar to what was happening in Germany, with local specifics of course. Such an approach will take years, but the goal is to have the same effects as in Germany.

It's possible to provide food, water, services while keeping a close eye on the Gaza population and ensuring the idea of peaceful cohabitation is dominant. The economy will slowly - or even not so slowly - rebuild, and that's a part of the demonstration of possible and beneficial, from some positions, approach.

GordonS
2 replies
6h55m

then start a sort of deprogramming the society

It could be argued that Israelis need "deprogramming" - look at the scenes we've seen over the past few days, with hordes of Israeli civilians blocking aid from entering Gaza. Look at the torrent of vileness spewed forth online by many Israelis. Look at the Israeli Telegram groups where they share and laugh at images of dead Palestinian children (actually, don't look; it's just too much).

Religious extremism is not just a "Muslim thing".

maroonblazer
1 replies
5h4m

If Israel really wanted to wipe the Palestinians off the map they have the resources to do it. But they don't. Based on claims Hamas have made, in their founding charter and other public statements, if they had the resources to wipe the Jews off the map they would do it, without hesitation.

That's the difference.

GordonS
0 replies
4h50m

As I'm sure you know, the Hamas charter no longer says anything like that - it explicitly says their beef is with Zionists and their treatment of Palestinians, not Jewish people or the Jewish faith.

The only people we see killing day after day after day, without hesitation, are the IDF.

It's quite clear that Israel has been doing everything they can to render Gaza uninhabitable - senior officials have even publicly said that's their aim. Furthermore, it's clear the aim is a revenge-fueled massacre of civilians, followed by ethnic cleansing - senior officials regularly call for Gazans to be shipped out to other countries.

mk89
0 replies
10h51m

Do you believe that people in Gaza will accept that Israel rebuilds it? And for how long? Because I already foresee a minority craving for independence against the old invaders that "enslaved us with money, first took our land, then they tried to buy us out...".

Etc.

The comparison with Germany doesn't stand. Two completely different situations, different histories, different people, different mindsets, different economies. You can't just let them rebuild it and hope that people in Gaza don't plan your destruction again and again.

Sabinus
0 replies
13h18m

The Israelis might not have the appetite to administer Gaza themselves. They would want an Arab state to take it but no one wants that headache and they prefer using the Palestinian issue to bash Israel. UN, maybe?

cultofmetatron
0 replies
6h15m

they've tried. I saw this youtube video awhile back about a man from gaza who built an inland fish farm to raise food to feed people because the fishermen were forbidden by isreal fro boing to the areas where the fish were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxEqXkdJUWY&ab_channel=Insid...

maroonblazer
2 replies
16h42m

Not if they have more to gain in 'heaven'. Remember, Hamas are religious fanatics.

peterashford
0 replies
14h18m

hamas != palestine

Aeolun
0 replies
10h38m

They have to be religious fanatics because that’s all they have to cling to. If I’m going to fight a losing battle against a grossly superior enemy I also want to believe that I’ll end up in paradise for it.

You might note that that brand of fanaticism goes down rapidly in countries that have high standards of living.

bart_spoon
2 replies
16h37m

That is certainly not true. Exhibit A: Osama bin Laden’s father was literally a multi-billionaire and he himself inherited $30-50 million.

avmich
0 replies
16h24m

He's not "people", he's a "human". One human could be significantly off from the expected behavior; many people are less so.

Aeolun
0 replies
10h41m

You think Osama was happy? The man was clearly very, very angry about something, and I doubt it was inheriting a bunch of money.

ajross
9 replies
19h11m

All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

It remains a mess, but less of a mess? Look, it's all bad guys running the show in that hell hole of a desert. There are no trusted entities anywhere able to run a government that isn't somewhere between actively antagonistic and actively genocidal toward half the local population.

Nonetheless a status quo with less shooting and death is better than a status quo with more. Hamas killed fewer people than Israel did/is, so... yeah, I guess. An occasional October 7th is a better choice than levelling Gaza is. Incrementally. But none of this is going to get better, likely within our lifetimes.

aurelien_gasser
6 replies
18h8m

Hamas killed fewer people than Israel did/is

That's an understatement, Hamas killed less than 1,000 civilians, Israel killed 20,000+

gafferongames
4 replies
15h51m

Hamas directly and intentionally targeted civilians. Israel is doing what it can to limit civilian casualties while destroying Hamas. Hamas is making that very difficult by blending in with the population, putting command centers under major hospitals and so on.

Lord-Jobo
2 replies
14h44m

Israel is doing what it can to limit civilian casualties while destroying Hamas.

You should really read the parent article at the top of the page. It doesn't support this statement and the court ruling was created from a mountain of evidence.

Sabinus
1 replies
13h17m

How close does it come to intentionally targeting civilians?

ImPostingOnHN
0 replies
2h18m

They hunted down, shot, and killed multiple of their own, underwear-clad civilian citizens who were all the while waving white flags and loudly surrendering in hebrew [0]

Imagine the sort of intentional targeting we don't get to see, because the journalists are killed [1] or the internet is cut [2] or the power is cut [3] or because everyone hiding is terrified to even move, knowing anything moving will be shot on sight [4], even surrendering Israeli hostages [0]. What a nightmare.

Known (indeed, willing) indiscriminate killing of civilians (especially in civilian areas, yikes) is as much a war crime [5] as "intentionally targeting civilians", even if one shouts "get out of there!" or "human shields!" or "terrorists!" or "it's comin' right for us!" in a Calvinball-style declaration whilst doing it.

For more detailed analysis of how Israel seems to be ignoring their obligation to protect Palestinian civilians, I recommend consulting the full ruling [6] from the ICJ, the literal judges of this matter.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/world/middleeast/israel-h...

1: https://cpj.org/2024/01/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...

2: https://www.wired.com/story/israel-gaza-internet-blackouts-w...

3: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67073970

4: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/16/middleeast/idf-sniper-gaza-ch...

5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiscriminate_attack#The_1977...

6 (PDF warning): https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...

slowturtle
0 replies
11h17m

Hamas is making that very difficult by blending in with the population, putting command centers under major hospitals and so on.

If there's a command center under a hospital, then you don't bomb the hospital. The fact that your enemy is using "human shields" doesn't mean that it's justified to bomb and kill everyone, including the shields. Now every relative and friend of the innocent people you killed has a reason to pick up a gun against you.

Obviously this puts you at a disadvantage. Instead of bombing targets on a screen from the comfort of an air-conditioned office in Tel Aviv, you'll have to send special forces in on the ground and probably take a lot of casualties. But you demonstrate to the civilians that you're not just killing them indiscriminately.

weatherlite
0 replies
5h11m

All Palestinians deaths are civilians by your measures.

weatherlite
1 replies
5h18m

An occasional October 7th is a better choice than levelling Gaza is

Better for who? For Hamas yes, killing Israelis with impunity would be a boost. But for Israel - I don't know of any democracy that can keep going with an 'occasional' October 7th. A country can't sustain that without collapsing at some point. Think about 9-11 but with 80k killed instead of 3000, and around 10000 kidnapped. And the entity responsible is just around the corner and gonna keep doing it on occasion. Those are the proportions. How many of these would the U.S be able to endure before its economy and society collapsed?

ajross
0 replies
1h46m

Then we'll deal with that "at some point" I guess? Again, Israel is a bad guy too. It's all bad guys. All options suck. So pick the one with less death and just shuffle along until some unknown event in the far future acts to break the stalemate and produce a peaceful region (or, more realistically, acts to break the equilibrium and we get a genuine demographic disaster that returns the area to a "single ethnicity" state, which sucks even more, but may be unavoidable).

Tough love: Israel can't expect to continue to act as it has in the decades since the fall of the PA. It ultimately depends on international support and that support will eventually run out, c.f. the linked article. It won't happen soon, or all at once, but it will happen and there needs to be a plan for regional coexistence, and as you'd surely agree there really isn't one beyond an imagined (and largely impossible) total military victory.

peterashford
7 replies
14h42m

People said Apartheid South Africa couldn't end without a bloodbath. People said peace in Northern Ireland was impossible. People thought the Cold War would never end. Impossible things are impossible until they aren't. I'm not saying that any of these things are easy - they clearly are not. But history shows us again and again that change is possible when people work towards it in good faith. From a practical point of view, I think that the international community needs to be allowed to help - both to maintain the peace and broker a way forward. The status quo will not reach peace. Israel will never have peace and security until Palestine has peace and security.

tim333
3 replies
5h54m

Peace could be achieved fairly easily if both sides said they want to live in peace. However only one does. I think that will change eventually.

ethanbond
2 replies
5h5m

“Peace while continuing to seize land” is a peculiar-enough type of peace to not really qualify for simply “wants to live in peace” by many people’s definition.

tim333
1 replies
4h27m

It's tricky but there have been attempts at a normal peace deal like the Camp David Summit. But then the Palestinians say no. So instead you get the other stuff you mention.

ethanbond
0 replies
3h40m

Yeah, the “but first X did Y! But before that P did Q!” goes back thousands of years. All that to say it’s not as simple as “one side wants peace and the other doesn’t.” It’s very messy.

irishloop
2 replies
13h33m

The Palestine/Israel conflict is significantly longer than any of the examples you gave.

Which is not to say that its impossible. But the older I get, the less hope I have.

ajb
0 replies
12h32m

Ethic conflicts all end eventually. A historian: https://archive.is/zADeF

TLDR: the ways they end are:

- partition

- equal representation

- one side driving out/murdering the other

It does seem like a lot of people have given up on the first two, but if it's not one of those then it's the third one. So we have to work towards making it one of the first two.

Thedarkb
0 replies
6h11m

The ethno-religious conflict in Northern Ireland dates back to the seventeenth century and the question of Irish sovereignty dates all the way back to the twelfth century!

skybrian
6 replies
16h48m

While I'm not a military expert, I think it would be reasonable to rule out the possibility of a similar massacre any time soon, for decades at least. It seems unlikely that Hamas would get away with it a second time? They put everything into a one-day surprise attack. The Israeli defense was caught unprepared despite being warned, but they have much more power and they can learn.

What happens in the wider conflict (with other Iran-backed militias) is another question.

weatherlite
2 replies
15h36m

While I'm not a military expert, I think it would be reasonable to rule out the possibility of a similar massacre any time soon

I'm not sure its reasonable. No one in Israel is thinking that way at least, and for good reason imo. The motivation to kill is there, so you have to assume there's a lack of ability. OK maybe for a couple of years Hamas will have to regroup, but how much time does it take to get a couple thousands more guns and grenades and bombs when Iran is giving them for free? It doesn't have to be another attack of this magnitude, even killing "only" 100 Israelis would be a huge blow.

You prevent this type of shit from happening again by being dead serious about countering terror, about deploying sufficient defense and not assuming too much about what the enemy can do because you might not have an accurate picture. Israel has been doing none of that in Gaza in the last decade or more.

skybrian
1 replies
13h14m

Seems like I'm assuming the Israeli defense will learn enough from this attack to prevent anything similar, and you're assuming they won't. Either way it's a guess; we don't know the future.

weatherlite
0 replies
12h54m

Seems like I'm assuming the Israeli defense will learn enough from this attack to prevent anything similar, and you're assuming they won't

I see what you mean now, I was under the impression you think Hamas lost all motivation or means to even try it in the future. Yes if Israel does all the right things the chances of this happening again soon are low.

avmich
2 replies
16h25m

Hamas doesn't get away from it this time already.

amluto
1 replies
16h10m

Hamas has quite a bit of leadership outside Gaza, and as far as I know, most of them are doing fine. They may even have more political capital than before the attacks. I’m not convinced they didn’t get away with it.

avmich
0 replies
14h54m

The plan right now could be to deny any remaining Hamas influence to anything in Gaza. Yes, some Hamas members may survive, even politically, outside, but they aren't going to affect anybody in Gaza.

imtringued
0 replies
10h28m

You need an anti Hamas Palestinian force that credibly fights against Hamas and has the support of the Palestinians but it is too late for that now.

RcouF1uZ4gsC
33 replies
20h36m

The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle

How many wars have the US and Japan fought after WWII?

Or France and Germany after WWII?

How many wars have the US Government and Native Americans fought after 1900?

Sometimes a clear, overwhelming victory ends cycles of violence.

lolinder
7 replies
20h26m

Germany and Japan's peaceful modern history are less due to a clear, overwhelming victory than they were due to the recognition of an absolutely horrific chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again. Either country could easily come up with more than enough military might to win a war if they chose, but the horrors that they perpetrated live on as cultural scar tissue.

The last example is just... horrific. I don't have more to say on it except that we shouldn't use it as a positive example of anything.

romwell
2 replies
20h14m

due to the recognition of an absolutely horrific chapter

You mean, the absolutely horrific military defeat.

lolinder
1 replies
19h7m

No, I mean the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians.

romwell
0 replies
13h35m

Which they only acknowledged because they lost. Horribly.

sobellian
0 replies
17h51m

Both countries were previously led by extremists totally incapable of any such moral epiphany. Sound familiar?

goatlover
0 replies
20h8m

Once their WW2 militaries were utterly defeated and their leadership was forced into unconditional surrender, followed by Allied occupation and rebuilding.

anon84873628
0 replies
19h50m

To say it more succinctly, Axis countries clearly had a lot to gain from peace (namely stable happy lives again) and nothing to gain from further violence.

Whereas you might say that many Palestinians (specifically the ones who joined Hamas) had little to gain from the status quo, and little to lose from violence. When you are born locked in the world's largest prison, becoming a terrorist might seem appealing.

Wytwwww
0 replies
19h24m

chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again

It's true that that's the case today. But it took a while for this transition to occur. Basically, the entire wartime generation had to retire/die out. In the 50s and 60s Germans were still very keen about downplaying the atrocities (even if they of course recognized that they occurred) and especially being very lenient towards war criminal and even protecting them from foreign governments (e.g. Heinrich Boere).

MeImCounting
6 replies
20h14m

The US Government continues to employ militarized forces to suppress Indigenous resistance to this very day.

hayst4ck
3 replies
19h19m

Does it? I am open to believing this, but I have not heard it. Can you link to examples?

wahnfrieden
1 replies
17h52m

It’s happening in Canada too

MeImCounting
0 replies
17h47m

Arguably Canada is worse about it than the US but I didnt feel like it was germane to the specific context of the current conversation. Regardless, the brutality and militant nature of the numerous blockade-busting and protest crushing actions undertaken by the RCMP and other groups in Canada cannot be understated.

MeImCounting
0 replies
18h59m

There are a variety of examples but the most recent ones relate to high profile pipeline protests. These protests have by and large been about and on land that was illegally annexed. These lands are by and large guaranteed by treaties that have since been illegally broken. Militarized forces from private security forces to federal agencies have been involved in the suppression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protest...

Less recent examples include the violence surrounding the AIM movement in the early 60s and 70s. Protesters have been unjustly imprisoned for decades. There was violence from federal agencies on multiple occasions throughout the time period when AIM was most unified and active.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement

Shockingly to many people forced sterilization continued well into the 70s as well, which fits the definition of attempted genocide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Americ...

There are more examples but these are the most documented and high profile.

It is a social war more than a material one. Residential school policy is an example of this. You may have heard the phrase "kill the indian, save the man". This is a policy of longterm cultural genocide and erasure.

Edit: I also forgot to mention another example which is the passive acceptance of the very high rates of missing and murdered indigenous women. The lack of investigation from federal authorities who are supposed to have jurisdiction over these things implies tacit acceptance of the systematic murder of vulnerable indigenous people.

https://mmiwusa.org/

munk-a
1 replies
20h10m

Yea, I think it's pretty odd how little awareness of tribal councils, discussions of self-governance, and resistance from Native Americans there is in the modern America but it feels like the US almost wants to forget it has reservations.

MeImCounting
0 replies
19h44m

This is intentional. It is a piece of a type of cultural warfare that extends from residential schools to the naming of sports teams. It is the reason the US military uses names of tribal groups for machines of war. It is the reason popular media refers to indigenous people exclusively in the past tense.

munk-a
5 replies
20h12m

That's exactly the point, at least how I'm reading it. Between the US and Japan peace and diplomacy was allowed to rule instead of constant violent retaliation. With France and Germany the same - the two countries have, in a pretty meaningful way, simply merged into a single country along with a lot of the rest of Europe.

When it comes to the US Government and Native Americans it's a far less good example - there have been militarized Native resistance groups at times since the 1900s and there has been open violence (see, for instance, Leonard Peltier and AIM)... in a large way America succeeded with erasing native peoples from their lands - and ditto with Canada - to the point where the groups are too fragmented to form any serious claims at independence. I also think Nixon (yes that Nixon) helped cool things off pretty seriously by, essentially, starting reparation programs to help reinject economic health into reservations - while those have had very underwhelming success at fully solving the problem America has been trying to uplift instead of suppress those communities.

All this stuff is really, really complicated - what defines a culture and a nation is extremely nebulous and subject to heavy revision as time passes. But we're all people and we need to be able to talk about peace even if we have deep historical wounds.

slibhb
4 replies
19h24m

That's exactly the point, at least how I'm reading it. Between the US and Japan peace and diplomacy was allowed to rule instead of constant violent retaliation.

What diplomacy? The US destroyed Japan's military, bombed Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (the latter two with nuclear weapons), killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally.

Then the US occupied Japan while directing the construction of a new Japanese government.

I don't see any diplomacy there.

Aeolun
2 replies
18h14m

The diplomacy consists of the fact the Japanese were allowed to rebuild their own country. They weren’t forcibly relocated to Hokkaido to make room for US settlers.

munk-a
1 replies
17h42m

And the diplomacy also consisted of the fact that in revenge for their defeat the Japanese didn't launch a long campaign of violent resistance. The cycle of violence continues as long as people seek revenge and at some point somebody has to be the kinder soul and concede or compromise on the horrors of the past. It's an action that requires participation from both sides but will always place stronger demands on one of them.

This is why I have hope in the middle east - Hamas are fueled by revenge and (IMO) the current Israeli government is also driven by revenge... but the majority of people on both sides have had enough. On the Palestinian side the populace has been denied an election for decades and on the Israeli side there is strong opposition to Netanyahu but terror remains a strong motivator.

slibhb
0 replies
16h55m

Japan was not allowed to have a military for decades after the US occupation ended in 1952. The constitution of Japan, written during US occupation, explicitly makes war illegal! Japan still depends on the US for defense and hosts US military bases.

If Japan isn't an example of brutal war solving problems then nothing is.

The majority of people on both sides have had enough. On the Palestinian side the populace has been denied an election for decades and on the Israeli side there is strong opposition to Netanyahu but terror remains a strong motivator.

Complete nonsense. The majority of Palestinians support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and prefer escalation. There hasn't been an election in the West Bank since 2021. Do you know why? Everyone knows Hamas would win! So Abbas, the moderate, indefinitely postponed elections.

RcouF1uZ4gsC
0 replies
18h50m

I don't see any diplomacy there.

Agree. The diplomacy that mattered happened aboard the USS Missouri with Japan's unconditional surrender.

Prior to that was a campaign of utter destruction. 80,000 people died in the firebombing of Tokyo alone.

svara
3 replies
19h47m

That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.

It's possible because wise humans on both sides realized that the law of retaliation would cause a never ending cycle.

I worry that this sort of wisdom might be in short supply these days.

RcouF1uZ4gsC
2 replies
18h47m

That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.

It was not because of wise humans as if humans suddenly learned wisdom. It was because they both realized instead of being empires acquiring territory, they had instead been turned into players between the US and the Soviet Union who were both much stronger than either of them and that war would end up completely devastating both of them without any benefits.

svara
0 replies
17h58m

Cynicism may sometimes seem smart, in this case it leads you to stupid conclusions.

While another war between France and Germany would have been unlikely for the reasons you state, it absolutely wasn't a given that the countries would develop cordial relations given their shared history. I call that a miracle. It's something we owe to de Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and others -- others in their place may very well have chosen a different path.

History is full of examples of countries being hostile to each other even though cooperation might be beneficial in the long run. In fact, it's probably true for the Israel/Palestine war as well.

awb
0 replies
15h12m

A few things emerged after WWII that probably helped keep the peace:

* democracy

* capitalism

* US military presence

* common European allies

* a shared dislike of communism

* a need to focus internally to rebuild destroyed infrastructure

hayst4ck
3 replies
19h25m

No. The fundamental flaw in this reasoning is the assumption that overwhelming victory is what established the current world order.

Rebuilding Europe via the Marshall plan, which involved humanization of individuals who fought on behalf of evil, is why there is peace in Europe. Likewise, the US reconstruction of Japan is why the US and Japan are at peace.

The US held the position of power and chose not to exercise it tyrannically. That is why there is peace.

The native American case is much closer to supporting your argument because genoicdal efforts were made against them and they were forced to submit, and then tyrannical power was exercised over them, maybe even to this day. However again, Native Americans participate in American civil society, there have been (probably insufficient) efforts for reparations, they do have land where they administer their own laws. In some locations native American heritage is celebrated and native American culture is promoted.

There is relative peace with native Americans because we are not particularly tyrannical, and I would say for the most part, modern Americans see Native Americans as humans not "savages."

Seeing your enemies as equally valid humans, who might have done things you would do if you grew up under their conditions, is what creates peace.

Peace is a function of humanization, not a function of victory. Victory without humanization does not end the cycle of violence.

bart_spoon
1 replies
16h26m

The Marshall plan was only enacted after Germany and Japan had been reduced to rubble, had millions of their civilian population killed through indiscriminate bombing, including the use of two atom bombs, occupied, submit to total surrender, the entirety of their command structure executed, and their governments dismantled and replaced by the Allies.

I think you are skipping over quite a bit of human bloodshed and strife to get to the Marshall Plan.

waffleiron
0 replies
9h44m

To add on to that, there wasn’t an immediate rehabilitation. Many, many terrible things happened after the war that are kinda buried in history. See for example: https://www.haaretz.com/2015-12-15/ty-article/.premium/movie...

RcouF1uZ4gsC
0 replies
18h54m

But overwhelming victory and unconditional surrender were the foundations for that reconstruction. There is really no way that peace could have been achieved with WWII Germany and Japan through giving money or diplomacy (Neville Chamberlain says hi). Once there was overwhelming victory resulting in unconditional surrender, then the rebuilding process started.

EDIT:

In addition, there was no equivalent of the Marshall Plan between the Soviet Union and East Germany, yet there were not wars between them after WWII.

aprilthird2021
2 replies
20h16m

The Marshall Plan and favorable trade agreements the allies gave Japan would never be extended by Israel the way it is and acts now, so there has to be another solution. Destruction didn't turn Germany and Japan around, the ability to uplift themselves did. The very thing which has been denied to Gaza since 2005 at least (and likely much longer)

mjcohen
0 replies
19h30m

Germany and Japan did not have anything in their constitutions advocating the destruction of the allies.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
20h2m

Marshall Plan and favorable trade agreements the allies gave Japan would never be extended by Israel the way it is and acts now

Between America and the oil-rich Gulf, I think we can figure it out.

locallost
0 replies
20h2m

The US has fought many wars since WW2 and has basically failed to win any of them. Again from the interview:

The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.

nemo44x
12 replies
20h20m

The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle.

Well, there are ways to end it. Historically there have been thousands of cyclical conflicts that eventually ended without a diplomatic solution.

locallost
11 replies
20h4m

In this situation I disagree. The world is overwhelmingly pro Palestine, and the Arab world obviously. They will not go away. Israel will not go away either.

eej71
8 replies
19h47m

They don't have to go away.

But, I think its reasonable to assert that the Arab world desperately needs to become more secularized. Most of the Arab world is deeply anti-semitic, deeply tribal (even amongst themselves), and deeply backwards in their orientation to what makes a free society possible.

In that sense, the palestinians need a big cultural change.

octopoc
5 replies
19h23m
starik36
4 replies
18h16m

These are all op-eds. Opinions, not facts. That's one. Secondly, for some of the links, if you follow the logic, they are suggesting that Israel should have gone to war with Hamas earlier and eliminated it. Thirdly, what exactly are you suggesting Israel should have done earlier in relation to Gaza and Hamas?

You probably don't know. Neither do I. If we did, other smarter people would have too and it would have probably been implemented already.

SirSavary
3 replies
16h26m

Benjamin Netanyahu encouraging the funding of Hamas via Qatar is not an opinion, it's a fact. The situation Israel is dealing with right now is entirely of their own making; it's called blowback.

starik36
1 replies
14h46m

See...you are taking something that did happen and twisting it to fit your bias.

The money from Qatar had humanitarian goals like paying government salaries in Gaza and buying fuel to keep a power plant running. Obviously, the money was misused and spent on building rockets and missiles. But also a portion was spent on what Qatar intended.

The rationale at the time (this was not a secret deal or anything like that) was that Qatar money is going to make it to Gaza one way or another anyway - it's better if Israel knows about it.

And somehow throwing Netanyahu into the mix is just meant to have some people see red. He was out of power for a year and a half. Surely if it was his personal agenda, the govt that took over after him would stop the payments. They didn't.

But I agree with you that no matter how you twist it, it's definitely a blowback.

eej71
0 replies
4h24m

If Israel is guilty of a sin, they are guilty of moral appeasement. They need to stop giving sanction to their destroyers.

SomeoneFromCA
0 replies
8h37m

Ben Gvir, Smotrich were all foaming in their mouths how great Hamas is for israel.

vcryan
1 replies
18h21m

Where are you getting this information? Arab don't "need to become secularized" -- why? To make you happy? Being Muslim doesn't make a person anti-Jewish. It is extremely bizarre that you are calling for an entire group of millions of people to change their culture.

eej71
0 replies
17h2m

As one source, I'd highly recommend Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. Yasmine Mohammed provides some first hand experiences here.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/49645708

Wytwwww
1 replies
19h29m

The world is overwhelmingly pro Palestine

That's arguable, certainly in the west at least. Even if most people oppose the current war/atrocities that doesn't mean that they generally favour Palestine (or especially Hamas..) over Israel (.e.g. like you didn't have to be pro-Sadam to oppose the war in Iraq).

vcryan
0 replies
18h20m

The world is pro-justice. At the moment, Israel's genocide and the long-term brutal occupation have caused anyone to pay attention to support Palestine.

megous
5 replies
17h0m

"Today we are faced with an Islamist cause, led by Hamas. Obviously, this kind of cause is absolute and allows no form of negotiation."

Lost me there, because this is not the framing that matches reality. There were several instances where Hamas was willing to form unity government with Fatah/PLO, to share power, negotiate, to do things like that. It's first and foremost a national liberation movement. The movement itself would not even exist had not been for the occupation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_reconcilia...

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full

I didn't read further, because assuming lack of negotiation, lack of pragmatism, of being able to participate in politics semi-normally, etc. is just a crucial point.

Especially while not recognizing intense pressure by the West for this political process to not exist, to suppress it, for it to fail. If you suppress politics, you get violent conflict eventually.

nsoonhui
2 replies
16h2m

Edit: My this comment is being downvoted despite stating just a plain fact. Hopefully the downvoters can do everyone a service by explaining what's wrong with it.

Like you said, HAMAS exists solely for the sake of resisting Jewish occupation [0], from the river to the sea, which also means the extermination of Israel and Jews [1]. And their conviction stems from their religion, Islam, which allows them to persist despite all the opposition on earth because they are hoping for a reward in heaven[2].

And of course Israel won't allow itself to be exterminated ( hopefully this point is clear enough, no citation needed). So how can there be negotiation?

0. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha...

1. https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/From-the-River-to-the-Sea

2. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL03124515/

megous
1 replies
6h24m

How come? I don't know, but HAMAS clearly negotiates and does pragmatic things. It's a group of people with moderate and more radical elements like any other largish group.

Like you said, HAMAS exists solely for the sake of resisting Jewish occupation [0], from the river to the sea, which also means the extermination of Israel and Jews [1].

Quite a jump.

nsoonhui
0 replies
5h34m

HAMAS pragmatism serves one purpose, the destruction of Israel, as outlined in their charter.

In 2017 they updated their charter to recognize the 1967 border but still not recognize Israel ( apparently anyone can be on other side of the fence except Israel). And lest you harbor any normalization fantasy, they kept up the aggression by fire rocket into Israel from time to time, which finally accumulated in the 10/7 attack.

locallost
1 replies
11h3m

He says exactly the same. There were in the past, but not today. He says the same thing for Israel - switched from secular to biblical and thus unable to compromise.

megous
0 replies
4h9m

I think why Israel's current government will not compromise is very pragmatic. It failed too badly in preventing this escalation, and has little support. Look at those numbers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_I...

Netanyahu is basically done and gone. His only hold on power is continuing the extermination campaign against Hamas and their families, until some miracle reversal in the polling numbers. His only mandate currently is for the "war".

Additionally, Israel doesn't need to compromise, due to large amount of outside support (in the form of material and political (vetoes in UN SC, etc.) support for its extermination campaign, and the sanctions against Hamas), and due to the massive power difference between it and Hamas.

Biblical stuff is largely a smokescreen/justification for pragmatic matters as far as government/politics goes. And maybe some ideological food for non-secular reserve soldiers to be more willing to go get maimed in Gaza.

How did it turn biblical, with 45% of Israeli Jews being secular, and 27% of population not being Jewish?

eej71
3 replies
20h38m

I think the premise of "the law of retaliation is a moral dead end" is just a high minded pathway to endless violence and anarchy.

seydor
1 replies
11h24m

israel has already created more terrorists than those it took down. "An eye for an eye" never works

eej71
0 replies
4h22m

The ideology of Islamic Fundamentlism is responsible for these terrorists. If Israel deserves any blame, its for listening to The West's constant demands for appeasement.

esjeon
0 replies
17h11m

... and on the other pathway, there's no fight because everyone's already dead. We fight because we're alive. It's just how life goes.

mrangle
10 replies
17h35m

The primary problem was always that there are too many parties who have an interest in the existence of Hamas.

Put differently, there are too many parties with an interest in using the Palestinians as pawns. Leaving aside the views of any specific Palestinian. As no serious person can dispute the ease of radicalizing destitute people without educations and with PTSD.

As long as this is the case, the Palestinians, on the whole, will present as radicalized.

The continued goal can't be to use them as pawns. The goal has to be to peacefully save every last remaning Palestinian life, at all costs. In spite of the interests of any of the people who use them.

Accomplishing that goal, at all peaceful costs, will be distasteful to both the people who want to sacrifice the Palestinians for Islamic land interests as well as to the people who see them as, at minimum, legitimate collateral damage.

But that is what will be required to take Palestinian civilians out of the middle of this endless nightmare.

austin-cheney
6 replies
14h29m

The problem is tribalism. The primary goal is exclusive dominion, but a distant secondary goal of political and militaristic domination will suffice in the meantime. These aren’t my thoughts or conclusions but the stated goals of several of Israel’s most senior politicians, saying something to the effect of removing the inhabitants so that they can make the desert blossom.

The problems here can be solved peacefully and permanently if the dominant faction so wished. The most durable solution is to tear down the walls, annex the occupied territories, and make the Palestinian residents full and equal citizens of Israel. Israel has stated as much directly but refuses that solution because they fear their tribal identity will not longer be a numerical majority. Another less durable solution is a two state solution in opposition to military dominance, but Israel does not want that either. Tribalism. The parallels to the conflict in the Balkans, which was ruled a genocide, are many.

halflife
5 replies
14h3m

Your solution is to make Jews a minority in their own country? The entire reason Israel was created is to have a safe place for Jews to exist and having the power to defend themselves.

Imagining that just “tearing down the walls”, and “why can’t we all just gel along” will work is pretty naive, especially considering history .

austin-cheney
4 replies
13h29m

The solution is to end tribalism, and nothing more. The rest of your comment imagines and argues against something not stated.

Do you want peace or domination? You can’t have both, and that is not naive.

halflife
3 replies
10h20m

Tribalism is human nature. You simply can’t end it. And pointing it as a solution for the Palestinian problem is just as likely as “saying let’s colonize mars”, both are very nice ideas, but only feasible in movies.

austin-cheney
2 replies
9h27m

What’s your solution? Domination does not appear to be working on any level and has severely eroded Israel’s credibility with its allies.

Qualifying apartheid and sadist acts as human nature or that solving problems is too tough to bother trying sounds pretty weak. These are positions guilty people take to excuse bad behavior.

halflife
1 replies
8h50m

Same solution that was offered to Germany and Japan after WW2. Demilitarize, deradicalize, erect a technocratic regime, supported by western nations. And after a few years they can have their own sovereignty. Right now the hate is far too great and the capabilities are far too extreme to just let the Palestinians enter freely into Israeli territory

austin-cheney
0 replies
53m

Think about it in reverse. If Palestinians and their land are emancipated into Israel then those illegal settlements in the West Bank will no longer be illegal.

That imbalance is a prime example why so much of the world believes the current situation, or even just comments to equivalent effect by senior Israeli leaders, is apartheid. If most of the world believes the current situation to be apartheid then its no stretch of the imagination to condemn words or action to remove, destabilize, or eradicate Palestinian prosperity as potential acts of genocide. The same qualifiers and equivocations were used by the aggressors to qualify genocidal acts that occurred in the Balkans in the '90s.

If Israel and Hamas leaders really wanted greater security then they would have already solved for these imbalances. Security is not the primary motivation though, domination is.

rsoto2
0 replies
15h2m

The primary problem has been a brutal occupation, apartheid state, and blockade

mjfl
0 replies
14h51m

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/benjam...

ignoramous
0 replies
15h25m

dispute the ease of radicalizing destitute people without educations and with PTSD

Using the same broad stroke generalization and similarly de-humanizing moral compass; how do you judge the society these people celebrating child murder, arson, death, riots, mass executions, hateful incitement belong to: https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17237393892624344...

But that is what will be required to take Palestinian civilians out of the middle of this endless nightmare

One might say, the chief among requirements is for the occupation of a people who have rejected it every step of the way to end. Everything else is a distraction.

ken47
9 replies
19h20m

I wish politics articles wouldn't make it to the top page of Hacker News. There's already enough political discussion in a million other places.

dang
6 replies
19h10m

Yes, and we won't let HN turn into a current affairs site, but this site has always had a certain amount of political content, and that's why this particular thread is happening. For more information, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146184 and the links there.

theultdev
5 replies
18h25m

Is there a reason why Oct 7th (the massacre that started this escalation) was not discussed?

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1696896000&dateRange=custom&...

dang
4 replies
18h0m

I haven't gone back to check this, but I assume users flagged the posts and moderators didn't turn off the flags.

We only turn off flags when it seems like there's some basis and at least some chance for a reflective, substantive discussion. That isn't possible in the immediate aftermath of a shocking event like the atrocities of Oct 7—the reactions are necessarily going to be reflexive rather than reflective; completely understandably so—but the odds of any thoughtful conversation in that state of shock are basically zero.

Not that this thread or the related ones have been anything close to what I would wish for on HN, in terms of thoughtful conversation, but unfortunately we don't have the ability to make that happen, and not discussing the topic at all seems out of the question as well, so here we are with no good position and no solution.

theultdev
1 replies
17h57m

I understand, could you please check it and report what you find?

But as I understand you, it's left to the moderator's discretion to unflag topics.

Is there a checklist / criteria of judging whether the users can have a "reflective" or "reflexive" political discussion?

Would 9/11 not be covered because it would be too "reflexive"?

Why was this discussion of this "genocide" viewed as not too "reflexive"?

You have to see how it looks very one-sided. It would be nice for political discussion topic allowance details to be explained.

Currently it leaves a lot of assumptions as you point out.

dang
0 replies
17h25m

Ok, I checked and the only moderator intervention I found was that we prevented flags from killing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37800508. That's not the same thing as turning the flags off, but it prevented the story from being marked [flagged][dead] instead of [flagged].

Would 9/11 not be covered because it would be too "reflexive"?

Probably? I'd prefer not to discuss counterfactuals because it's impossible to know.

I've explained at length on many occasions how we approach the question of which political topics to allow or turn off flags on - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

I know it's unsatisfying, but moderation of these things is never going to be (and certainly never going to feel) completely consistent. We try our best, but it's not possible, and especially not in hindsight, because moderation is guesswork.

YeGoblynQueenne
1 replies
5h47m

> We only turn off flags when it seems like there's some basis and at least some chance for a reflective, substantive discussion.

Mokay, but then can I grumble? I've posted several articles on the subject of the alleged genocide of the Palestinians by Israel's IDF, here on HN I mean, and they all got flagged and not unflagged. I took care to post opinions on both sides of the subject, e.g. this public statement by "over 800 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies" warning of potential genocide [1], and this NYT article by historian of genocide Omer Bartov, saying that genocide is not in evidence ("yet") [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38036236

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38228704

Those are articles by scholars who discuss the subject in the most dispassionate manner imaginable (Bartov is particularly a pleasure to read for his level-headed and erudite analysis, although it's obvious he'll find it very hard to admit genocide by his country which he clearly loves) and I'm pretty sure that means they satisfy the "curious conversation" goal you, dang, hold sacred (and it's good that you do).

So what's up? I've been posting this stuff for months and now the subject has exploded in mainstream discourse with the ICJ case, which makes it even more emotionally charged than before. Wouldn't it have been better to get a chance to discuss this before it got to this point?

And while I appreciate there's not one side that HN favours, the ability to flag anything anyone dislikes shapes the discourse in the way vocal minorities prefer.

Sorry for grumbling. I hope you know I respect and admire the work you've done to keep HN on the straight and narrow.

YeGoblynQueenne
0 replies
5h42m

Sorry again. This must be a hard day for the moderation team. My <3 <3 <3 to all of youse.

(My partner claims "<3" looks like I'm mooning you. I assure you that's not the intended meaning).

itsoktocry
0 replies
18h24m

Yet you waded in to comment, when you could have clicked on any of the other 29 links?

ajsnigrutin
0 replies
18h55m

A agree about this topic, but "technical"-politics (=tech related) should still belong here (eg. EU vs Apple, EU vs encryption, etc.). After all, who else than us nerds can understand the topic, and discuss it without the "only pedos need e2e encryption, if you are not a pedo, what are you hiding?".

thsksbd
8 replies
20h29m

The ICJ punted.

The ruling is a joke, how can you rule against the defendant and yet order the defendant to monitor themselves?

The ICJ knew if it found against Israel it would loose all credibility outside the West, but it also had too much political pressure from the West to rule for Israel.

dragonwriter
4 replies
20h17m

The ICJ punted.

No, it didn't. It ruled on what amounts to (in the parlance of the US legal system) a preliminary injunction, ordering one because the pleadings and supporting evidence on initial review warrant it, while the process of a trial on the merits will take longer.

The ruling is a joke, how can you rule against the defendant and yet order the defendant to monitor themselves?

The only people the ICJ can order are the parties. External monitoring and enforcement is a matter for, primarily, the UN Security Council.

The ICJ knew if it found against Israel it would loose all credibility outside the West, but it also had too much political pressure from the West to rule for Israel.

The process by which the ICJ might rule for or against Israel, rather than ordering provisional measures, is much longer. This is just an early part of the case.

thsksbd
3 replies
20h13m

The ICJ could, however, order a ceasefire that is a freezing of the conflict.

This process will take years that the Palestinians do not have.

dragonwriter
2 replies
19h58m

The ICJ could, however, order a ceasefire that is a freezing of the conflict.

It could, as it did against Russia in Ukraine v. Russia (2022). But note that in Ukraine v. Russia it specifically cited the resolution adopted by the General Assembly under Uniting for Peace addressing the Russia invasion as a violation of the UN Charter as a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another UN member, that is, it was addressing an operation already declared illegal independent of the issue before the Court.

Ordering a halt to an operation that otherwise might fall within the recognized UN Charter right if individual or collective self-defense is, especially when the allegedly aggressing party is not subject to the order, seems pretty hard to justify as a provisional measure.

(One might also note the absence of an effect of that order in Ukraine v. Russia.)

thsksbd
1 replies
19h49m

It did order Hamas to release its prisoners and not Israel, even though Hamas wasn't on trial and Israel has multiple times more children [1] in jail than all Hamas' prisoners.

Its a punt by an organization that has always been useless except to tut tut people and regimes the West doesn't like.

[1] I mean child as is used colloquially, not as "under 18" in the manner is often disingenuously used.

dragonwriter
0 replies
19h39m

It did order Hamas to release its prisoners

No, it didn't order Hamas to do anything, as it has no authority to order non-state actors. It, in the last of the paragraphs that are part of the discussion and not part of the provisional measures that constitute the binding orders, “calls on” Hamas and other armed groups to release all hostages immediately and unconditionally.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
20h23m

ICJ punted

Yes. But this isn’t the final ruling.

South Africa asked for something analogous to a preliminary injunction. The ICJ declined to order a preliminary ceasefire. Instead, the case will be tried as usual.

thsksbd
1 replies
20h14m

Which will take years that the Palestinians do not have

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
19h45m

take years that the Palestinians do not have

Sure. I don’t think the ICJ was envisioned as an incapacitating body. Instead its existence is a deterrent. A venue for retribution and possibly even restitution.

w0mbat
4 replies
19h29m

The ruling also ordered Hamas to release all hostages, and Hamas has previously claimed they would abide by any ruling of the court. I find it unlikely though that they will comply.

starik36
0 replies
18h3m

They probably claimed it because in their delusion they thought the court would unconditionally side with them.

Unlikely that they will release the hostages just because a court said so.

shortsunblack
0 replies
18h5m

Hamas is not a state. ICJ is a tribunal that adjudicates disputes between states. ICJ has no jurisdiction to rule in regards to Hamas. Neither can Hamas bring a case against Israel, as it has no standing, considering it is not a party to the international treaty.

rsoto2
0 replies
14h59m

Palestine is considered occupied territory and is not a part of the UN

dragonwriter
0 replies
19h25m

The ruling didn't, and couldn't given the ICJ’s jurisdiction, order Hamas to do anything: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39149823

Hamas has previously claimed they would abide by any ruling of the court

No, Hamas previously claimed that they would observe a ceasefire if the court imposed one on Israel, conditioned on Israeli compliance with the same. They didn't say they would do anything related to anything other than an ceasefire order.

glass_saturn
4 replies
21h17m

Respectfully, would you have made the same comment about 'finding a place in your heart for the humanity of the other' if we lived during the holocaust, where 'one side' was being maimed and killed by the other, more powerful side?

Would you have made the same comment if we were talking about apartheid in South Africa?

How about if we were talking about how slavery ought to be stopped prior to 1865?

Should we _always_ be looking to find the humanity in the other side, or is there something fundamentally different here?

Not trying to disrespect anyone here, but sometimes we need to ask ourselves tough questions.

nf3
1 replies
20h49m

I think you're missing the point. The battle of gaza is not fought on HN. We can only comment on the situation, and we can do this with equanimity and compassion even if we disagree.

Shouldn't we all be opposed to Nazism? Shouldn't we all be against slavery? Of course. But in the present discussion, I can be opposed to the atrocities of October 7th, while being sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, just as I can be opposed to the destruction of Gaza while having compassion for the Israelis.

Being critical of either side doesn't mean I'm against them.

glass_saturn
0 replies
20h24m

Being critical of either side doesn't mean I'm against them.

The side that's now being maimed and killed in the tens of thousands with no recourse, had nothing to do with October 7. The sides that are relevant here in the context of this ICJ case are the civilians of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Government of Israel.

psyfi
0 replies
20h56m

Respectfully, would you have made the same comment about 'finding a place in your heart for the humanity of the other' if we lived during the holocaust, where 'one side' was being maimed and killed by the other, more powerful side?

Yes..

Should we _always_ be looking to find the humanity in the other side, or is there something fundamentally different here?

Yes..

dang
0 replies
21h9m

I'll try to respond to this in a minute but in the meantime have detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010.

Edit: I guess my basic response is that I'm skeptical of approaching these questions from that level of abstraction. None of us can say what we would have done in those horrible situations. We can only answer out of our own imagination about ourselves, which is likely to be completely unreliable.

What I do think is that on this site, we can and should be working with our own responses in a way that is more than just venting them onto a perceived other. That's in keeping with what HN is supposed to be for.

foxhop
4 replies
17h39m

let's start by turning the water and electricity back on

halflife
2 replies
9h45m

Water and electricity were both resumed in oct. 15th.

waffleiron
1 replies
9h30m

Here is an Israel Times article from the 28th that seems to prove that to be untrue for electricity (but true for water although severely reduced). Could you source that statement?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-concern-for-humanitarian-...

halflife
0 replies
9h13m

I stand corrected, water were resumed but electricity was not.

xorpd
0 replies
1h9m

Let's start by returning the Israeli hostages

AzzyHN
4 replies
17h33m

What would happen if they did order a ceasefire? Who would enforce this?

nojvek
3 replies
16h32m

I feel this is where the world is seeing the failure of US.

When US have Ukraine weapons to defend themselves, we were the good guys.

When US gives Israel the weapons to attack and airbomb Palestinians in daylight it puts US in a very bad light.

US should be the ones enforcing a cease fire. Where no side gets to airbomb each other.

Every life is valuable. Israelis or Palestinians.

The failure of US policy is to be the gatekeeper of world peace. We have the largest army by far. We spend an obscene amount of our taxes on defense.

Yet we failed to keep peace.

presentation
0 replies
13h43m

The US’s motivations are to maximize its power and profits, to think it is to keep the peace is naive. There are other, more economically valuable regions with conflicts in the world whose situations have higher probability of clean resolution than the Palestine conflict, so the US will focus on those instead until it is forced not to.

Anyway, there is no resolution to Israel/Palestine that won’t involve the probable demise of one of the two’s futures. Bloods being spilled and it will continue to be spilled.

maronato
0 replies
11h54m

Giving weapons to Ukraine wasn’t about helping Ukraine; it was about opposing Russia.

Israel is a strategic ally in the Middle East that also happens to have many high profile supporters in the US. There’s likely enormous pressure from within to do just about nothing and just let it play out.

Peace, unfortunately, is a conveniently flexible concept employed to conceal one’s motives and justify frivolous wars.

irishloop
0 replies
13h26m

Israel is a close military ally and Palestine is... not.

There are no true neutral countries in the world. Everyone has allies who they treat differently than enemies.

There are no good guys or bad guys. There are only countries which do good and bad things.

Whether its in Palestine or Congo or China or Ukraine, the most even a superpower can do is leverage power to reduce killing and fatalities.

anon291
3 replies
21h5m

At the end of the day, the ICJ does not matter because it has no military, and the only major military power in the world, the United States of America, doesn't recognize its jurisdiction at all. Next time, they should try the Supreme Court if they actually want to make a difference (not that it'd work)

megous
2 replies
19h52m

America recognizes ICJ. It even has a judge in it, which presides the court currently.

https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/donoghue_en.pdf

anon291
1 replies
17h49m

It has an American on it, but the United States no longer accepts its jurisdiction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice

For example, the United States had previously accepted the court's compulsory jurisdiction upon its creation in 1946 but in 1984, after Nicaragua v. United States, withdrew its acceptance following the court's judgment that called on the US to "cease and to refrain" from the "unlawful use of force" against the government of Nicaragua. The court ruled (with only the American judge dissenting) that the United States was "in breach of its obligation under the Treaty of Friendship with Nicaragua not to use force against Nicaragua" and ordered the United States to pay war reparations.[21]
megous
0 replies
3h43m

It still does. Just not unconditionally (as in https://icj-cij.org/declarations). There are several cases pending concerning the US, and there were cases concerning US since 1984.

WuxiFingerHold
3 replies
13h41m

I wonder why the moderators of Hacker News are accepting submissions and discussions like this. This has nothing to do with IT, tech, startups. There's nothing more controversial than this political topic. If I want to read 1000 personal views on topics like this I got to Reddit.

kylecazar
0 replies
4h21m

Despite the name, HN has never been constrained to stories about IT, tech and startups.

It's the first sentence of the guidelines:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

dang
0 replies
12h23m

HN has always had some amount of political content—not much, but some. For more information, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146184 and the links there.

TaylorAlexander
0 replies
12h52m

There's some good links to additional resources here. There is a "hide" option for the story if you don't want to see it. Personally I think if all we ever see is tech here we will lose sight of the bigger picture.

teleforce
2 replies
15h38m

Those who want to know the proper history and context of the current conflict, you really owe it to yourself to read this well researched book by Prof Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine [1]. In his latest book he even mentioned Israel - Palestinian latest major war (fifth war in chronological order) in the form of many years of blockade on the people of Gaza. The fact that this book was published several years (2017) before the event happened kind of foretelling that now we have an on-going all out war between one of mightiest army of the modern world against people without a country and no official army to its defense.

[1] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine (2017):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyears...

runarberg
0 replies
15h2m

And a recent interview on the same author: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/20/this_is_a_colonial_w...

alephnan
0 replies
12h48m

one of mightiest army of the modern world

Technologically advanced, sure. Mighty? They have a pretty small population compared to most countries in Asia.

yyyk
1 replies
14h36m

If you had an inkling of a genocide going on and a chance to act, obviously you'd immediately do anything in your power to stop it? Despite the judges being appointed by their own countries*, I'm sure they have humanity. So this is an acquittal in all but name.

Oh, they'll keep monitoring and the case will take years, but the result is obvious even now.

* e.g. It's obvious the Russian judge has strong incentives to vote as Putin tells them to, otherwise they'd have to move to a windowless basement where the only access is by an elevator...

alephnan
0 replies
12h37m

If you had an inkling of a genocide going on and a chance to act, obviously you'd immediately do anything in your power to stop it?

Doesn’t seem people care about what’s going in Africa. People care here because this is a war of religion. And by that, I mean whether Western countries remain increasingly supreme (in terms of the world order).

theferalrobot
1 replies
21h8m

Why are many respectful yet pro-israel posts being flagged and removed, while there are vile pro-hamas posts being flagged and left here? Why was discussion not allowed on Oct 7 but is now?

I know you are trying but it does not seem even handed. I'm screenshotting a whole collection of them examples if seeing them together would be helpful.

dang
0 replies
20h27m

(I've detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39146010.)

I'd need to see links to specific comments, but certainly the flags aren't working any differently than they usually do. The only difference between [flagged][dead] and just [flagged] is the number of flags relative to upvotes; in the former case it would be higher than in the latter case.

Your several comments in this thread seem to be coming from a place of battling for one side against the other. I'm sure you have very good reasons for it, but it's not the intended spirit of discussion here, as I tried to explain at the top of the thread. In such cases, where people have (legitimately) strong feelings on a topic, the temptation to see the mods as biased in favor of the opposite side is almost irresistible. It happens from every perspective on every divisive topic, and this topic is one of the most divisive we've ever seen.

stanfordkid
1 replies
4h8m

It's kind of funny reading HN comments comparing this to WWII. Israel was given the land after WWII as some sort of weird hand washing by western governments. People already lived there. The claims that Hamas is like "Germany" trying to eliminate Jews are laughably absurd. These are people without a military fighting with AK-47s and rocket launchers against one of the most sophisticated armies on the planet -- F-35 jets and laser guided munitions. How can we blame Hamas when it is Israel that is stealing Palestinian homes to add Jewish settlers? Imagine someone coming to your house with a bulldozer kicking you out and placing new people there. This is literally what a settlement is and it is condemned by most of the UN outside of the United States.

It is also important to remember that Israel did not exist before 1948. There was a lot of violence that occurred against Palestinians during it's formation -- within 2 generations of the current generation -- rapes, murders, displacement. I recommend watching the documentary film Tantura which outlines some of this. There is some pretty horrific stuff... 70 year old Israeli men laughing about old stories of raping women. Feeding men their own cut-off genitals etc. There is a reason the "Nakba" is not allowed to be mentioned in Israel.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16378034/

There also seems to be only a very basic understanding of the political realities behind why Hamas exists in this forum. "Big bad boogeyman Islamic terrorists" vs "Secular free modernity" is a stupid way to look at this. The Israeli government does not want a Palestinian state. Hamas was very much uplifted by the Israeli government since as early as the 80s because they delegitimize the idea of a free Palestine in the international sphere. They are easy to negotiate against because they are extremists. Even given their extremism, Hamas does not want to "genocide Jews" -- this is another absurd claim that is propagated but has no basis.

Hamas is also not ISIS. They are a resistance movement against an occupying power that uses violent means to influence political realities. This is dirty dirty work and many horrible things happen when you give 20 year olds AK-47s. I don't support it. But the existence of Hamas is very much an expected outcome of military occupation. It is interesting to note that the founder of Hamas was 8 year old when he saw 15 Palestinian men executed at point blank range by Israeli soldiers. He is also a pediatrician and a geneticist.

In general, I think people on this forum view terrorism through a very childish lens. It's a bit like calling everything a "programming language" ... well yeah maybe C++ has some similarities to Typescript ... but they are very different beasts. Osama bin laden and Hamas may have shared political objectives and ideals but they are not completely equivalent.

To summarize my feelings: Israel has definitively built a great civilization -- but we musn't equate that with some sort of moral cleanliness. Hamas is a terrorist organization -- but we musn't equate that with a lack of real grievances.

The statistics don't lie: Israel has killed more women and children in 100 days than any other recent modern military conflict. It has used more munitions than the US did for the entirety of the Iraq war. It's a ridiculous response that, given the context above, is nothing short of genocide.

smoothjazz
0 replies
2h51m

An important point that I don't think most people realize is that the Kibbutz that Hamas attacked on October 7th actually used to be Palestinian towns that they were expelled from during Nakba:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_villages_dep...

jmyeet
1 replies
20h30m

It's worth noting that the ICJ like pretty much all international bodies has no enforcement power and countries will routinely ingore the rulings they don't like.

Still, things like this matter. It adds to public pressure.

Another thing is that how judges rule will often align with national interests rather than any facts in any case. So in a case against Israel you might expect the US to side with Israel regardless of the facts. Likewise, China might side against a genocide case because it doesn't want to set a precedent given the history with the Uyghurs. Likewise, Turkey will be aware of how any precedent may affect their treatment of Kurds, and so on.

So what do you do if you're one of these countries and the facts are against you? You go through this dance of trying to bypass the facts and get your desired outcome on procedural grounds.

I mention this because regular courts (eg in the US) do the exact same thing. The Supreme Court may grant standing on tenuous grounds for a case they want to rule on or deny standing on procedural grounds to avoid making a ruling when the facts are "against" them. Likewise, they may make a narrow ruling to avoid a broad precedent or seek a broad precedent if it's the desired outcome.

"Standing" here means you're an affected party who is allowed to bring an action to court. There are lots of rules depending on the action to decide if you have standing. There's also historical tradition. For example, SCOTUS will tend to favor granting standing in First Amendment cases because government restraint on speech is viewed as having a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Courts are political. They have always been political. The idea that judges are impartial scholars isolated from the world is a myth. This is what I want people to understand. I'm not even agreeing with or dismissing the ICJ's conclusions here. I'm talking about the judicial process.

aprilthird2021
0 replies
20h7m

The US judge seemed to go with the majority here. The Israeli judge concurred on some of the charges plausibility but not all. Only one judge disagreed with the court on all charges.

I don't think the judges had the kind of bias alleged by your comment (it's certainly possible they could have but their opinions don't seem to reflect that)

erickf1
0 replies
18h55m

The UN has no power to exercise binding laws over sovereign states.

TacticalCoder
0 replies
16h54m

I've got a simple question: who's committing the genocide in Gaza? The IDF or Hamas?

Hamas cowards are not respecting the Geneva convention. They're not wearing their uniforms: they're instead, on purpose, dressing as civilians.

The IDF is sending soldiers to their death to protect their country. While hamas cowards are hiding, like rats, in sewers while using their own civilians as human shields.

Who's killing who here?

Berniek
0 replies
11h55m

Firstly, the conflict in the GAZA strip is war.

Pure and simple.

Realistically this war is being fought politically in the worlds media. The fight is for public opinion. So the orders of the IJC are about war. The hair splitters may want to change the nature of war to "genocide" by one side rather than condemn BOTH sides in the conflict. "but we can only take evidence from XYZ and only on matters ABC"

It seems to me to be a case of the UN wanting to have a seat at the table. They have become more & more irrelevant in matters of real importance or conflict. This ruling is pretty meaningless regardless of what your beliefs are. Its just more media circus.

We can argue about statistics and false testimony who is right and which side is credible but we are just adding to the noise.

Most terrorist organizations & actions are the direct result of one group having no political power. It ceases when that group obtains political power.

It seems to me the original attack by HAMAS was simply to ensure that there is more war and that war can be fought in the worlds media. This ruling and the whole procedure is just more of the same.

Wars usually continue to be prosecuted till one (or both) side loses the political will to continue. Does anyone here really believe Israel will lose that political will, regardless of world opinion? Hasn't in the past. Just like Russia.