The mental gymnastics here are required for the other side too, e.g. elections were last held in Gaza in 2006 or so; it's not remotely a democracy or republic, control is maintained by violence, see e.g. [0].

Every side of this conflict is a villain, and depending how far back you want to go, that may include the British, who created war and instability where they pulled out, in Palestine and in India/Pakistan (smart, but not very nice..)

I think the bottom line is, one may argue about how much of the responsibility lies with any participant, but it is undeniable that all have blame; and the article tries to discuss "coding in a conflict zone" rather than the conflict, and does it rather well IMHO.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip#Post-2006_elections...

Gaza doesn't have true autonomy, though. The people of Gaza can't actually vote in the elections that matter to them, i.e. those of Israel. Israel controls the airspace, the ports, and much of the land while claiming they've "disengaged."

There's no basis for a free government when the people can't exercise any kind of sovereignty.

I fail to understand your reasoning: the people of Gaza voted Hamas in, much increasing the intensity of the conflict; Hamas then essentially canceled elections - guaranteeing that no one will try to reduce the conflict.

And somehow, that is of no consequence because they cannot vote in the Israeli elections?

And yet, somehow, before Hamas, and still in the places where Fatah rules (and elections were not canceled) the situation is infinitely better.

I fail to understand your reasoning. There is no free movement or freedom at all in Gaza thanks to Israeli siege and daily bombardments. There can be no sovereignty under these conditions. The antecedent of a previous election doesn't just suddenly cancel out the precedent or current situation.

That ignores the conflict is between the one of the world's greatest military powers versus a civilian population, slowly being forced to self-dispossess with zero freedom of movement, makes the situation worse than bantustans. One side is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, and those conventions clearly make occupation and colonization of occupied land illegal. And this was the plan from the very beginning in the words of their own founders: Jabotinsky's The Iron Wall (1923). Why wouldn't you take them at their word? And how hasn't that colonial ideology, in retrospect, predicted exactly where Israel-Palestine is at today?

Jabotinaky is from one faction, not the ruling one for the first 30 years or so of Israel’s history. Many disagreed with him even back then.

After the Oslo accords, for a while, the Palestinian population had prosperity and there was a mutually agreed path forward. There were dissenting voices on both sides. Those in Israel assisinated PM Rabin. Those in the Gazan side elected Hamas democratically (and then lost the ability to vote ... happens when you vote for a non Democratic Party and they win). It is easy to lay all blame at Israel for being a military power. But the Palestinian side deserves a lot of the blame.

Also, don’t poke a military power if you don’t want to be bombed. “Civillian population” doesn’t build attack tunnels, rocket factories, train commandos, etc. I don’t blame them for trying, but that comes with consequences like getting bombed. Hamas is not wearing uniforms but they are guerilla / army. Not civillian.

There was over a 10 year gap between Rabin’s assasination and the election of Hamas and the withrawal from Gaza.

Ironically the largest concessions and the ratification of the Oslo accords were done by Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the mid 90׳s and the withdrawal from Gaza was initiated by Ariel Sharon both were ״right wing״ governments.

To me this signifies that under the right conditions even the most hawkish government in Israel can seek peace but at this point I’m not sure which conditions can be met for any one in the Palestinian Authority yet alone Hamas to be willing and able to negotiate in true faith.

Most of the above comment is incorrect, specifically, I find it important to emphasize:

There was no and there is no ethnic cleansing (though Hamas is definitely publicly declaring its intention to eliminate the Jews from Israel)

If you continue to break the site guidelines, we're going to have to ban you. Please stop being uncivil, and please stop using this site primarily for political battle.

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

Seriously, why do people keep ignoring the border with Egypt? They are enforcing a stronger embargo on their border. There are valid reasons for not having an open border with a territory controlled by a terror organization.

Really jogs the noggin' as to why this particular country receives the preferential treatment it does on the international stage in spite of actions that would have any other country sanctioned or bombed to smithereens. I can't quite figure it out! It's also pretty interesting how this comment was able to draw out so many purely organic defensive comments, more quickly than even a thread critical of China would.

There is the other side of the coin, the conflict is and always was a relatively "meaningless" conflict as far as the scope goes from any point you look at including casualties however the level of attention it receives is also disproportionate just as much if not more as the so called preferential treatment you claim it has.

Look where it is - middle east. It is by far the most US-friendly country in whole region, even if something would go wrong with all muslim western-aligned governments, US can rest assured that Israel will remain an ally. They don't have that many other options I think.

When politics, power and money enter the game, in region so rich in oil (meaning trillions of $$), some humanitarian concerns are thrown quickly out of the window because 'priorities'.

I find it hilarious in the worst way possible - Israel, by definition jewish country (although not 100%), is running probably biggest concentration camp in the world these days. History doing some 5-dimensional circles and laughing on all of us. Palestinians are not helping much to improve their own situation, but after 60+ years behind the fence, who can blame them.

It takes some real unique ability to look at Gaza's map and missing the fact that it has a very long border with ... Egypt. So even if Gaza is an "open air prison" there is more than one guard to it.

The border with Egypt is walled. The wall also extends underground to prevent smuggling.

The Gaza strip cannot be accessed by air or sea either.

Indeed. And not by Israel[0] ; I think the reason Israel gets most of the criticism here is that Israel is a western, democratic party, but by no means is it the only one to blame in this story.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Egypt_border#Buff...

Are you suggesting that the border with Egypt should allow smuggling? The point is that it is a border with Egypt, not Israel. Goods can (and do) enter from there.

> Are you suggesting that the border with Egypt should allow smuggling?

No, I am not. I am describing that wall.

> Goods can (and do) enter from there.

No, they don't. Only people are allowed through the Gaza/Egypt border (controlled by the EU).

Fine, so the EU is seiging Gaza with Egypt.

Though I think your data is not up to date the important fact remains the same: Israel does not control that border. Talking about the embrago and selectivly only mentioning Israel is a curious thing and to me it seems biased against that non-EU non-muslim state.

Please pay more attention to what I posted: I never mentioned Israel, and I am not biased against them.

The Gaza/Egypt border only allows people, not goods. Goods need to go through Israel/Gaza borders.

If you disagree with this, go talk to the administrators of those borders or modify the treaties that govern them.

If goods could freely pass back and forth there wouldn't be so many tunnels.

"Goods need to go through Israel/Gaza borders"- unless Egypt and EU will want to let goods go through the Egypt/Gaza border.

I'm not arguing that goods are currently flowing from Egypt. I'm saying that they could if Egypt and the EU would want them to. So the original comment you responded to was correct in wondering why Egypt is not being mentioned.

Go read about Camp David accords, Egypt-Israel peace treaty and the whole mess of UN resolutions involving Israel and after you do that, let me know if it just depends on Egypt.

Why is this being down-voted? it is a correct and relevant statement.

But it's a false equivalence, because Gaza is part of the country of Israel not Egypt. This perspective would make sense if you had a two state solution but in the current perspective it makes absolutely no sense. It's like we put some region of France under lockdown and people were like "but that region borders Germany! The real villains are the Germans!" whilst France was refusing to grant the region either political independence or allow it to become part of Germany. It's that silly to mention Egypt.

That's just a bad analogy.

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

Gaza was part of Turkey (Ottoman) and was a part of Britain and was a part of Egypt and was a part of Israel and it is an independent region since 2005.

It's more like Belgium in your France Germany analogy. France has no control over the Belgium-German border.

And Hamas turned it into fascist state for its own population. I suppose opponents of blockade prefer a fascist state with access to weapons import.

> Israel's blockade contrvene's international law.

I'm not an expert in international law, but blaming a country for protecting it's citizens from being bombed into oblivion is just nuts. The only thing this "blockade" is intended to do is to stop Hamas from building rockets. Everything that cannot be used to build rockets goes in and out through any crossing every day of the week.

That's factually incorrect. There are things that go in/out of Gaza but in very limited supply. The blockade (why is it in quotes?) was created more than 10 years ago for political reasons as a way to pressure the people of Gaza to turn against Hamas. Ever since, it achieved the exact opposite. To remind you, ~2 million people have been living under this siege since then.

Don't fool your self - putting 2 million people under siege is not self protection.

PS - the US definition for terrorism is "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.". Just saying.

No one is bombing Israel into oblivion. It's not true just because you keep saying it. Palestinians need to defend themselves otherwise Israel will genocide them. How is that wrong?

The sum total of 50 years of the Israeli Palestinian conflict since 1967 has resulted in about the same number of casualties on both sides combined as the Mexican drug cartel violence last year alone, if either party is attempting genocide they are executing it very poorly.

You're either very ignorant or very malicious. Israel is not performing any kind of genocide.

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

Gaza is ¬1M people and has received tens of BN$ of aid.

Israel has withdrawn all its forces from Gaza 10 years ago.

At what stage do Gazan start behaving like responsible adults rather than blaming the Great Satan?

> At what stage do Gazan start behaving like responsible adults rather than blaming the Great Satan?

I stopped breaking your legs - at what stage do you start behaving like a responsible adult and run again rather than blaming me ?

Also, Israel's chokehold on Gaza has relaxed - but it is still a chokehold. And Egypt isn't helping either. How do you expect Gaza to function without an airport (destroyed by Israel), without a significant harbour and without even reasonably permeable land crossings ?

For some recent history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip

Israel withdrew its forces to the border, but still intervened often. It controls the population register, who and what gets in and out including essential medicines and people who need urgen medical care. As noted it restricts access to much of the farmland and fishing areas. It’s for these reasons that many consider Gaza to still be occupied territory.

Probably the moment the 'Great Satan' stops to control all flow of goods into and out of the Gaza. It's easy to say Israel has withdrawn when all they did was move a few kilometers further out.

What would you recommend Israel do when Hamas's charter literally says that they what to destroy Israel and the Jews? Hamas is Gaza's elected party and letting them import weapons is very bad for Israeli civilians.

Hamas is Israel's creation. Fatah were the dominant political force in Gaza over the decades and decades of oppression until Hamas were finally founded more recently as an attempt at firmer and less tolerant response to Israel.

Sure, but you didn't answer the question. Even if Hamas and even Gaza are totally Israel's fault, the fact that Hamas wants to destroy Israel makes some of Israel's actions pretty damn rational. What else can they do? "Shit, we pushed these Palestinians way too hard for way too long. Fair enough, they can bomb the shit out of our country now".

All that said, I'm not invested in the matter, and I'm a geopolitics noob, but I wonder what would happen if Israel would, unprovoked and unilaterally, drop all restrictions, recognize Palestina as a country and supply as much financial aid as is needed to rebuild the place. Just overnight. Wouldn't Hamas's support crumble instantly? Wouldn't the atmosphere be exactly like when they took down the Berlin wall?

I mean, would Palestinian combatants truly use the newly opened borders to immediately drive into Tel Aviv and shoot everybody? Tbh I don't see it.

Exactly. For all of Hamas' talk, it's not only reactive, it also results in a disproportionately small level of anti-Israel violence in practice due mostly to lack of resources (comparatively).

If Israel withdrew all restrictions unilaterally, would there be offensive actions by Hamas: almost certainly. But they'd likely be on a scale many orders of magnitude smaller than Israel's actions to date, and I doubt they'd be sustained.

Seriously? So following your logic the US should just let al qaeda access to weapons and let them vent off in NY.

"would there be offensive actions by [al qaeda]: almost certainly. But they'd likely be on a scale many orders of magnitude smaller than [US's actions in Afghanistan] to date, and I doubt they'd be sustained"

I hope I'll never live in a country that will allow their citizens to die in order to appease some murderous religious group.

We've banned this account. You can't post like this to HN, even in a shitty flamewar like this thread.

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

Israel continues to block access to 35% of the arable land in Gaza, and to prevent access to 85% of it's waters. The Israeli blockade prevents access to food, fuel and medical supplies.

> withdrawn all its forces from Gaza 10 years ago

That doesn't include airstrikes which are regular and ongoing:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-ai...

no contradiction there.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_balloon#Gaza_Strip_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant#Violence_agains...

(just a few samples)

Israel withdrawn but there is still an ongoing (sometimes quiet) war.

So lets get this straight - the single variable that explains the situation of millions of people happens to be a subjective opinion of the moral failings of people you've never met. Nice!

> Instead the Israeli stance is noted as being the same as Egypt

Because it is.

The UN disagrees.

> The UN disagrees.

The UN is a political animal controlled by political interests.

Common sense can be used here. Gaza shares more border with Egypt than with Israel.

Egypt doesn't control Gaza airspace or ports. Israel does.

No, but they do control their border with Gaza, which is as locked down as those ports you mention.

Sir, gently revoke thyself from this thread with your blatant antisemitism/antizionisn.

We've banned many accounts for antisemitic comments. If you want to see what that looks like, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18132624 is an example from this thread. (You'll need to set 'showdead' to 'yes' in your profile to see it, because I'm not going to unkill it just to make a point.)

That's not what padraic7a posted, you can't do personal attacks here, and since it looks like you created this account just to do flamewar, I've banned it too.

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

Not to lean either way, but it would be nice if it was possible to criticize Israel without it being conflated with antisemitism. Criticizing Saudi Arabia, for example, doesn't typically cause people to assume I'm criticizing Islam.

You can criticize Israel as much as you want. But what people so often do is to apply different morals to Israel and other countries. And that's is pure antisemitism.

Israel gets the same level of expectations as any other 'western' democratic state as it ultimately wants to be part of if it isn't already the Western community.

Why are you confusing antisemitism and antizionism?

The poster is criticising the actions of a state, that's not anti-semitism in any way. He didn't even say anything about jews or judaism.

Don't bother, he created a throwaway just to say stupid shit. There's no point in following his game, downvote, flag and ignore is the best course of action.

I don't know if the OP of this thread is part of the antizionism camp. I can only assert that he is an idiot (He looks at the map and cannot see the long border that is shared between Gaza and Egypt)

BUT antisemitism == antizionism as it simply design to strip Jews from their own homeland. Antizionism is not part of a global anti nationality movement that says "Let's abolish the 57 Islamic countries, the 21 Arab countries and this one Jewish state" its one and only goal is to deny from the Jews what many other have.

I don't think anyone who claims to be anti-zionist apart from the far-right of the spectrum calls for the destruction of Israel.

The "homeland" reason is stupid. Religion should have no say in politics, including the founding of states.

It is only relevant that it is what a major part of Gaza population claims.

Israeli people feel that anti-zionist effectively results in giving weapons and access to those who wish to use them, which means destruction and ethnic murder. Unwillingness the explain how this outcome is prevented seems to many as complete alignment with Hamas goals and effectively (indirectly) calling for the destruction of Israel.

What's with the ye olde language anyway?

Also it's not bad to criticize a state for dickish behaviour. That's not antizionism, that's calling a spade a spade.

"anti" = opposition.

Opposition can have various degrees.

The terms you used are often reserved for substantial prejudice and discrimination (see Allport's scale).