(1) Why do you think Israel should be obliged to supply electricity to a hostile territory, ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1], backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population centers?
(2) How exactly is Israel preventing the generation of electricity in Gaza?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant
EDIT: grammar correction
Why do you think a newly found state (~65 years) has any right to claim the territory it occupies (except of the might makes right variety)?
ruled by a government that explicitly states it's desire to destroy it [1]
As opposed to a government that occupied the land from the previous inhabitants and has been steadily displacing them for decades?
backed up with routine rocket fire into Israeli population centers?
Backed up with routine genocide tactics...
Israel does not claim Gaza. It withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, and gave full control over to the Palestinian Authority. Israeli NGOs even invested tens of millions of dollars in boosting the Palestinian economy after the withdrawal.
Either way, it's probably going to be very hard to have a reasoned discussion, so I'll just stop here.
That's not true. Israel continues to control what can be imported to of exported from Gaza.
From the point somebody starts to criticize Israel.
Criticizing Israel, at least in the West, has become the modern day equivalent of religious blasphemy. All the usual tactics for protecting religion come into play: whining, playing offended, asserting persecution, while at the same time trying to totally and utterly destroy the critic by false accusations.
Israel has a harsh dilemma. They want to keep their state (which is reasonable at this point), but on the other hand they don't want to share the power with Palestinians (which is not). They are also afraid that the Palestinian birth rate would have them outnumbered, and then what?. They use lots of tactics to ensure that the Palestinian population is confined --from import/export restrictions, to destroying their land for cultivation, to steadily expanding into other areas, etc. It's not genocide on the Hitler scale, but it's sure as hell, Ethnocide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide
(That they "invested" into the area is laughable. What they did was they build companies to exploit cheap labour under very strict conditions. It's not like they enpowered any palestinians to become entrepreneurs. So it's investing in the same way Nike invested in building factories in Africa, etc.)
Please explain to me, what makes Israel worse than all the other area changes after the world wars?
Let's look at Karelia. Do you think the Finns should start bombarding St Petersburg with rocket artillery? (And would you expect such a mild response from Russia as Israeli has shown...?)
The main difference I can see is that Israel makes for a good external enemy for a bunch of really disgusting dictators.
>>Backed up with routine genocide tactics...
Last time I checked the population growth in Gaza was one of the fastest on the planet. So you use the worst accusations possible to make as "arguments". Seems like hate propaganda to me.
And so on. Get this subject of HN.
Worse? Ok, I'll bite:
It may not make it "worse" (sic) but it still doesn't make it right.
Just because your form of abuse is not worse than others' does not make you right.
>>It may not make it "worse" (sic) but it still doesn't make it right.
The point was not right or wrong, I argued that there are totally different standards -- especially if you compare with the neighbouring countries which destroy many Palestinian refugees' lives to keep the question alive.
You didn't answer that.
See my other comment for more about the different standards: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635315
But if you really want to discuss the "worse" part, why should the Israeli question be treated differently than all other land areas?
Edit: You don't want to "bite" on one of the fastest population increases on the planet called "genocide tactics"? If that is not hate propaganda, what is?!
This is a wrong framing of the question. I don't think anyone wants to treat it differently than all other land areas in similar circumstances. ALL of those are wrong. Now, mention any other specific "land area" similar, and we can talk.
But if you insist, I can think of some reasons this is to be treated differently: because Israel, despite being as abusive as other countries, is a favorite child of the West powers, and receives much more military, diplomatic and media support.
Just an example: we hear for the persecution of gays, or twitter users, or women's right in Arab countries repeteadly. How many times do you hear about things such as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehadrin_bus_lines http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...
or this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078771/Israel-brace... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/27/naama-margolese_n_1...
I did. See Karelia above. Or choose a few others of the dozen (more?) of land area changes after the WWs.
So a country should be hated and double standards are ok, if some west countries accept it more than brutal dictatorships!? Sigh...
And sure, the othodox jews have extreme subgroups that are as crazy as e.g. the Saudi government. But what the Hell does that prove? You know full well that you can find similar in any democracy.
You must be trolling.
Karelia? You think this bears any resemblance to the Palestinian situation?!!! I'm not at all for countries annexing other countries territory and moving their borders. But the situation here is worse than most other cases -- and sure as hell not at all similar to Karelia.
Here's a better example: consider Mexico demanding California back, establishing a state there, treating Californian's as second class citizens, and confining them in small areas north of Sacramento.
(Well, the difference would be that Mexico had California a couple of centuries ago, not a couple of millennia. And immigrants from there already consist of 30% of the population of the state. So, in that case, they'd have a slight right to want it back).
>And sure, the othodox jews have extreme subgroups that are as crazy as e.g. the Saudi government. But what the Hell does that prove? You know full well that you can find similar in any democracy.
Segregated women/men bus lines? No, you cannot find this kind of crazy sh*t in any normal democracy, especially in Western Europe. You might find religious nuts being able to impose such rules inside their churches, monasteries or homes or clubs. Which is kinda OK. But on a bus line??? In public roads?
>>Karelia? You think this bears any resemblance to the Palestinian situation
You ignored my point again, but I think you know that.
Both cases were area losses where part of the population left. If anything Karelia was much more unfair.
That it looks very different now, compared to all the other land losses from the same time period, depends probably mostly on the Palestinian suffering made permant -- by the Arab states.
>>Segregated women/men bus lines? No, you cannot find this kind of crazy sh*t in any normal democracy
You mean it is different in your home and in your bus?
Amish do more extreme things, imho.
Also, how is it in France in those immigrant areas where the police are very careful to thread?
Not only are they refusing to provide them with power (they're obviously paying for it, not "taking" it from Israel), but they're also preventing them from generating their own electricity as well. Depending on where you are in Gaza, you have anywhere from four to eighteen hours of power a day under normal circumstances. When the tensions rise, you'll be lucky to have two hours of power a day.