That's not a good line of argument to take here given that Israel has mandatory military service and given what its democratically-elected government has been doing to the Palestinians for generations.

Part of the reason why the conflict drags on and is making that little pocket of the world a festering sore of evil is because so many Palestinians and Israelis think like this.

Be part of the solution, not the problem. It is not as easy as simply believing that whatever your group is doing is right, some other group is less worthy of moral consideration than yours, and wallowing in the victim-mentality that anyone criticizing your actions or position is racist towards you. That's how you know it is right.

It doesn't matter if they support hamas you still cannot genocide them.

I suppose that these are people who do not understand Arab culture. Just recently (as in, I remember it was October 22 because I had an appointment in Beersheba that day) an Arab explained to me, more or less because the conversation was not in English, that "You Jews always argue and protest and fight with each other. We don't do that, we listen to our fathers. We have families". He was explaining to me how the different families fight between them, like they'll shoot at each others houses but the goal is to assert family honour, not to actually shoot somebody. But the point he was struggling to make, is that in Arab societies, everybody thinks the same. There is no room for division, no room for dissent, no room for contrary opinions. He specifically mentioned that he has family in Gaza (and yes, this was already two weeks into the current conflict) and everybody there is Hamas. He said "is Hamas", up to me (and you) to interpret that as being actual members of the organization or supporters.

I actually talk to Arabs often here, and I don't shy away from the hard questions. The Beduins specifically will happily tell you all you want to hear, with me (maybe naively) feeling that I'm in danger. Just yesterday I had a half hour conversation with a Beduin about such matters, in my house as my guest.

I know you're just sharing your personal experiences, but I got to say that this not only does not match my personal experience, but it also sounds very much like something you hear Israeli settlers say to justify settlement expansions and violence.

I would like to hear your personal experience, then. I've heard similar things from many Arabs, I often ask questions to understand their culture better. Most of my contact is with Beduins, just because we live close to each other.

> Most of my contact is with Beduins, just because we live close to each other.

I think that's a pretty niche subset of Arabs, for one thing.

Why bother trying to generalize based on folky anecdotes like that? Like, I think you are smart enough to know that such a casual pronouncement isn't an articulation of a reliable rule for understanding the behavior of large groups of people.

When I'm specifically discussing their culture, and I find aspects pretty much uniform between the Sabuaia Beduins and the Arabs of Haifa (where I lived for a few years), then I generalize. I haven't been to Haifa for quite a while, which is why I mentioned the Beduins specifically.

You think the settled Arabs were big fans of the Bedouin?

The settled Arabs don't really know much about the Bedouins, and neither do the Jews. The settled Arabs of today really don't have much an opinion of the Bedouins, but I suppose that might have been different in generations past. Both populations have separate conflicts with the Jewish state.

Both the settled Arabs and the Bedouins tell that the settled Arabs came long after the Bedouins. The settled Arabs say that the Bedouins were here before they came, but the Bedouins were only in the بر (which is somehow different than صحراء but I don't know what the difference is, both seem to mean "desert" in my language). Now the Bedouins are found further north too. The settled Arabs came mostly from Egypt and some from Syria, and some from other places. They came looking for work and land, and married with the local populations. They consider themselves local since time immemorable because they married with the local populations, though they will tell of their forefathers in Egypt.

The Bedouins say that they came a few hundred years before, from Saudi Arabia. Some Bedouins also tell of great-great grandfathers from Egypt. They actually will be very frank about not liking the settled Arabs, and they will be just as frank when talking about their relationship with the Jews. I happen to know of injustices that the Jews did to the Bedouins that the anti-Jewish crowd would absolutely love to parade, if they only really cared about the welfare of the people and not just the establishment of an Arab state to displace the Jewish state.

"Arab culture", "Arab societies", "in Arab societies, everybody thinks the same", etc.

It's ridiculous to paint all "Arab societies" across Asia and Africa with such a wide brush and deny differences.

Then you tell me how the Arabs view themselves. Because Arabs that I've spoken with from Palestine, Lebanon, Tunis, and Iraq all mention that they see themselves as a common culture and brotherhood. Interestingly, Moroccans don't seem to share this view from what I've gathered.

My samples mostly come from people that I've met abroad or the HelloTalk app which is designed to connect people learning each others' languages. So my sample might be biased, but I don't see how that selection would bias this particular issue.

They aren’t a monolith. Levant Arabs have a hard time understanding people from the Maghreb (North Africans). North Africans think differently than Iraqis, and everyone despises Gulf Arabs and their easy oil money and the Wahhabist tendencies of the Saudis.

The one thing they have in common is they don’t like the way Palestinians have been treated but have ceased viewing it as “their” fight long ago.

Yes, I agree with your first paragraph. The second paragraph I agree with less, as the Iraqis that I've talked to do in fact seem to see the Palestinian struggle as their own struggle as well. But I don't claim to really know Iraqi culture.

That’s because both Iraqis and Palestinians were occupied and brutalized by America and Israel respectively. so there is much to share. Just like South Africans commiserate with Palestinians or African-Americans about their experiences.

But that doesn’t mean Iraqis are going to fight a war for the Palestinians. They have their own problems to deal with.

Thank you.

  > Levant Arabs have a hard time understanding people from the Maghreb

Do you mean that the Levant Arabs do not understand the Maghrebi language or the Maghrebi culture?

Interesting how they see themselves as a brotherhood yet not a single Arab country has ever taken in so called Palestinian refugees in the last 50 years. Jordan most recently just expelled them all! What a brotherhood

Or how about that Shiite and Sunni brotherhood going on?

> It’s insane how normalized antisemitism is you people don’t even see it

breakdown

1. normalized antisemitism = there is antisemitism AND it is normalised. Neither claim backed up.

2. 'you people don’t even see it' = there is a flaw in your world perception, not the posters'. Totally subjective so impossible to dispute.

3. keep them [Hamas] in power - isn't that what the Israeli gov't has done?

(Hamas are appalling but the IDF response is also appalling, and counterproductive in being exactly what Hamas wants. Keep pushing and the local conflict may spread and pull in bigger anti-Israel actors)

"How do you honestly support people who elected Hamas"

Speaking against mass destruction of key societal institutions and infrastructure, mass murder and attrocities, and starvation of Gazans by Israel's government policy in its current military operation against Gaza, is not a high mental bar for giving "support". It's easy to support that.

I don't have anything against Jews. But I can see that people in Gaza, being under siege by Israel for almost two decades, and under direct occupation before that, and being displaced or having ancestors displaced from their original homes, by Israel before the occupation, may dislike Israel or Jews. (easy to conflate the two, given that that's the Isreal's media policy) And I'll not judge them for that.

If this is insane, fine...

On the flip side, Jewish populations have been expelled (or worse) throughout the middle east. Israel rationally fears an unlimited right to return or a single state solution that results in them being demographically swamped. Further, we're talking about radicalized populations that no other neighboring state wants to accept-- Egypt does not want Gaza back. States in the Arab world remembers Black September.

The situation in Gaza isn't stable. Hamas needs to be displaced for any chance at peace. And then, that peace is going to have to take the form of a two state solution where no one gets exactly what they want, and it may have to be a generation away.

> On the flip side, Jewish populations have been expelled (or worse) throughout the middle east. Israel rationally fears an unlimited right to return or a single state solution that results in them being demographically swamped. Further, we're talking about radicalized populations that no other neighboring state wants to accept-- Egypt does not want Gaza back. States in the Arab world remembers Black September.

Yes, everyone has legitimate fears. I just don't see how the current AI assisted military operation of killing all of "Hamas" members and their families, will help deradicalize the population. Or how making Gaza unlivable will help assuage the fears of surrounding Arab countries around uncontrolled mass immigration, or lead to two-state solution that Israel rejects outright, at the moment.

> I just don't see how the current AI assisted military operation of killing all of "Hamas" members and their families,

I don't think Israel has done perfectly, but I do think they have a pretty low amount of collateral damage for fighting in an urbanized area. Keep in mind the "civilian" casualties numbers for Palestine come from Hamas-controlled entities, and count all fatalities as civilians.

> will help deradicalize the population

I think the current situation with Hamas on top reaches pretty much peak radicalization possible. It doesn't serve Palestinians well, either, being a kleptocracy that is systematically stealing aid for personal enrichment and terrorism.

Leaving things as they were wasn't a great option; negotiating with Hamas wasn't an option; attempting to contain Hamas and wait them out has proven to be a really bad option.

> or lead to two-state solution that Israel rejects outright, at the moment.

There's no doubt that Netanyahu and Israel's right are terrible.

> pretty low amount of collateral damage for fighting in an urbanized area. Keep in mind the "civilian" casualties numbers for Palestine come from Hamas-controlled entities

I am not sure about what you mean by "pretty low" collateral damage when almost half of the infrastructure of Gaza has been damaged or destroyed, including historical and heritage sites. More than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed, around 70% being women and children. I guess those "civillian" casualties are militants to you.

It is also disingenuous to say that the casualty numbers cannot be trusted as they are from "Hamas-controlled" entities when historically the numbers the Gazan health ministry gave has tallied with Israeli numbers in every war prior. It is like conflating that the FDA cannot be trusted if Trump said not to get vaccines, because they are under the same government. Different agencies are not held to the same standard and they might not have the same goals, Hamas is mainly a military wing, while the Gazan health ministry cares for the health and survival of their people.

Also, Israel keeps track of every person born and dead in Gaza, they have state-wide surveillance there, they could have chosen to send in surgical strike forces and taken out the militants strategically, but instead chose to carry out one of the heaviest bombardments in the current decades. Netanyahu has also said their military won't leave Gaza, after the war. Seems like they plan to expand their West Bank Occupation operations to Gaza.

> 17,000 Palestinians have been killed, around 70% being women and children.

Unfortunately, 1) these numbers come from Hamas; 2) count militants; 3) a large fraction of "children" appear to be militants.

> while the Gazan health ministry cares for the health and survival of their people.

Every real government tracks civilian and military deaths separately. Here we're given one misleading lump of a number (that includes significant incentive to lie).

> Also, Israel keeps track of every person born and dead in Gaza, they have state-wide surveillance there, they could have chosen to send in surgical strike forces and taken out the militants strategically,

I think this is unrealistic and any effort to do so would be suicide.

> Netanyahu has also said their military won't leave Gaza, after the war.

Netanyahu has said just about every possible thing depending upon whom he's been talking to. There's no disagreement he and his government are trash.

> Unfortunately, 1) these numbers come from Hamas

The official Israeli count is higher than the Hamas count.

We're talking about the demographic fractions. The official Israeli counts support that they're killing militants to civilians at a ratio of 2:1 --- which is horrible, but better than warfare in urban areas usually achieves

It is probably not as favorable of a ratio as Israel states), but not as terrible as the Gaza Health Ministry numbers that imply substantially all of the casualties are civilians.

Unfortunately, Israel's adversary has chosen a set of tactics that put civilians in greater danger.

> The official Israeli counts support that they're killing militants to civilians at a ratio of 2:1 --- which is horrible, but better than warfare in urban areas usually achieves

Official counts by a party to the conflict also are invariably better than what the actual war they are prosecuting achieves.

Of course-- this is a point already made in my comment-- "It is probably not as favorable of a ratio as Israel states". We obviously cannot simply take the numbers from either Israel or Hamas.

> 1) these numbers come from Hamas

Let me reiterate that the numbers have been accurate so far and for previous conflicts, you can't just brush it away by saying "Hamas said". I can also say "IDF said" and brush everything away, but when there is evidence time and time again that they are accurate, you can't erase them away. Moving on...

I am not sure why you don't consider infrastructure as collateral damage too. That would too shallow of an analysis to forgo. Without infrastructure, like hospitals, power plants, water desalination plants/water towers and even homes, that the IDF has been destroying, there would be no electricity, water, sanitation, healthcare and shelter for the civilians that are left alive after all the bombings. It is already a humanitarian crisis situation, but the loss of infrastructure is almost amounting to a genocide, because there is no support structure left for the people, who are already barricaded in and have no chance to flee. They will just die from dehydration, disease, malnutrition or the weather, if the bombs don't get to them first. I also don't mean the definition of "genocide" that has happened after the successful killing of thousands of people, I mean genocide that shouldn't and cannot happen, because we can't let it happen. "Never again" applies to all human beings. Also the "aid" that is going in, is not enough to sustain the civilians, hundreds of trucks need to go in daily but that many trucks may only go in, in a week.

> 3) a large fraction of "children" appear to be militants.

If you think it's justified to kill women and the "children", than you are no better than the supposed militia you are fighting. I am not sure what to say, further than that. Even B'Tselem would have a stroke hearing that.

> I think this is unrealistic and any effort to do so would be suicide.

I also don't think the carpet bombing is justified and more could have been done. A combined operation from ground and air would have been better, than full air bombardment.

I am not sure how Netanyahu is not in jail after his corruption charges from 2019, who in Israel keeps allowing him back in power if they hate him so much? Just a rhetorical question.

> If you think it's justified to kill women and the "children", than you are no better than the supposed militia you are fighting.

I'm just going to stick to one point, because I've been trying to say it and it hasn't been heard. When you define "children" in a way that it includes a big fraction-- perhaps a majority of those-- taking up arms, it stops being a useful measure.

Israel's current estimate is a lower bound of "over 7,000" militants killed. The algorithm they use to determine someone is a militant is:

- found dead with a weapon

- or over 14 years old and male at a rocket launch site, a Hamas tunnel, or in a position which was firing upon the IDF

- or if you're known to Shin Bet as a Hamas/PIJ/etc member

- or if you're over 14, male, and killed with a large group of people meeting criteria above.

It's obviously imperfect; it overcounts in some ways and undercounts in others.

This means a lot of 14..18 males are counted both as "children" and "Hamas militants"

Israel has allowed civilian aid in, does "knocking" to reduce deaths from their bombing, supplied the water Palestine was using to begin with, etc. so when Hamas fighters have literally been robbing the civilians of the food aid, it rings a bit hollow.

It's weird that you want to ignore how we ended up with the current borders to begin with (let's just ignore the war that was started, then lost), ignore the peace deals they signed and reneged on, the intifadas, etc. in this analysis.

> Israel has allowed civilian aid in...

Yeah, I also do (sometimes, not often, yeah) "knock" a few minutes before I kill someone along with their entire extended family, just so that it's all legit. Fuck the criples who can't move fast enough, they deserve it anyway. And then I (sometimes) don't shoot at other people that try to bring aid to my surviving victims. I allow aid, you know. Much better than just giving it. Although I've killed about 110 of those UN aid people, hm. But! I still demand to inspect and delay/ban aid at will. And I also "israelsplain" the situation to the people on the Internets, because apparently it's so hard for people to understand how moral and fair I am. And Internets still hate and flag me, those anti-semites. Whatever. I have the guns to do what I want anyway, whatever UN or internets blabber about rights or intl. law or somesuch.

Such high morals. :D /s

You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, or how wrong others are or you feel they are. This is exactly the sort of comment that my pinned comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38573652) is asking users not to post to this thread (or indeed any thread).

We have to ban accounts that keep posting like this, so please don't do it again.

(Needless to say, this goes for both sides of the conflict, not just one.)

Would sourcing every single point in my sarcastic comment help? Or should I just not use sarcasm?

I'm never quite clear on what the word "sarcasm" means but I think the answer to your question is yes, you should just not use it - at least not in an aggressively-argumentative way. The guidelines try to cover this with rules like "Be kind. Don't be snarky." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

> It's weird that you want to ignore

Please make your substantive points without swipes.

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

That's fair, I will try to do better, but this is a hard one to discuss neutrally. There's a huge mess, it has long been a huge mess, and a lot of people want to focus on only half of the story.

Yes, and everyone has a different half of the story that they want to focus on, and a lot of the time we struggle to include, or even acknowledge, the other "halves".

I know it's extremely difficult. But it's work that we all have to do together if we want our community to survive.

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