As someone on the Israeli left I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place- I do not condone Netanyahu and his government and am indeed very critical of Israeli governments of the past decades. But on the other side, my 78 year old mother is fleeing to shelter every couple hours as my hometown (not anywhere near the west bank or the Gaza strip) gets hit by rockets, as do my young nieces and nephews, some of which developed psychological issues from the stress. And the stories from what people experienced on the October 7th attacks wrench my gut.
At the same time I'm also sorry for the Palestinians suffering during this war, the vast majority of them civilians. I wish instead of people treating it like a football match where you to support "your side", they could process the nuance of opposing any violence towards civilians and support peace (with the goal of a two state solution with Israel and Palestine co-existing according to the 1967 borders and UN resolution 242).
IMO this would require that both Netanyahu and Hamas do not stay in power.
(Edit: Lest this seem like an expression of bias: I've been in touch with HNers on the other side of the conflict as well and can say similar things about them.)
I think the majority do not have any "territorial ambition" and would usually happily agree to a two state solution peace agreement, including giving up the WB, as long as security to Israel was guaranteed.
We are very far from this being realistic because of a lack of leaders on both sides, and because the security guarantees are incredibly hard.
That idea which seems so reasonable can encompass a lot of very unreasonable positions.
Total security is never guaranteed, and many evils have been committed in pursuit of it.
Of course I accept that some actions are legitimate in some places to achieve a higher level of security for the people, but it always requires careful consideration and is not something for which just any sacrifice can be made without further thought.
It is just a true fact of the world that if Israel were to let down its guard even a little, many Israelis would be killed. We saw the proof of that on October 7th.
It is a true fact of life that many Israelis are killed, as a direct result of the Israeli government's long-term policy of actively assuring that the most violent and extreme Palestinian faction possible is reinforced and strengthened at every turn (starting with its original creation) to maintain internal Palestinian divisions and provide a pretext to deflect domestic and international pressure to make peace.
That said, what would've been your alternative? For Israel to refuse to cooperate at all with Hamas the last fifteen years? To prevent them receiving any outside money from Qatar? To not allow any Gazans to work in Israel?
That's what would've needed to happen to "not reinforce Hamas", and I have a feeling that had Israel done that, it would've received more condemnation.
While Netanyahu has taken it run with it for quite a while, it actually predates Netanyahu having a significant role related to it, back to the original formation of Hamas, which Israel fostered in Gaza for much the same reason as Netanyahu has repeatedly actively fostered since.
> That said, what would've been your alternative?
Not actively working to antagonize the Palestinian population, disrupt the election campaigns, and make the Fatah-led administration look weak and complicit (by blocking campaigns directly, carrying out a targeted campaign of detention of Palestinian politicians, and directly interfering with ballot distribution and other administration preparations for the vote) as a deliberate strategy to secure a victory by the primary opposition -- Hamas -- in the 2006 Palestinian elections.
Not refusing to cooperate in subsequent PA-Hamas agreed Palestinian elections (where Israeli cooperation is required because numerous voters still live under Israeli administration) to freeze the divided status quo in place, and not cutting off peace talks because of an agreement between the PA and Hamas to form a unity government, hold elections, and participate together in peace negotiations, for the same purpose.
Among other things.
October 7th happened under the current approach, to assume it would be at least as bad under a 'guard let down' scenario begs the question. There are two competing factors here - hatred and control. The current regime maintains a fairly high level of control, but doing so engenders more hatred. If anything, I think high control-high hatred may be an attractor in policy space, but probably not a long term good one.
Look, I'm sorry, but that's wishful thinking.
Israel left Gaza in 2005. Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since. The current justification is "because of the blockade". What should Israel do? Not do a blockade and hope that Hamas decides to give up violence after 30 years, despite it promising to do so?
There is just nothing that Israel can reasonably do given that its neighbor insists, rightly or wrongly, that it needs to invade Israel and kill all Israelis. Even if they are 100% right about all the historical injustices they've endured, and everything was 100% Israel's fault - it would still make no sense to "let down our guard", cause the direct result will be the death of multiple thousands of Israelis.
So what is your plan then? Keep millions of people in perpetual prison for all eternity? Because that's more or less what "blockade of Gaza" entails.
It's important to emphasise just how small the Gaza strip is: roughly the size of Dublin (smaller if you exclude fairly large "forbidden zones" near the wall). No city that size can be self-sufficient, it's physically impossible. Gaza is set up to fail. Not intentionally as part of some plan, but that doesn't change the fact of it.
Hamas has hinted at some moderation over the years such as recognising Israel's right to exist, and they have basically been ignored or rebuffed at every turn. Israel hasn't even tried with Hamas. They just said "fuck these elections" in 2005 and that was that.
I intently dislike Hamas, but Hamas is the reality that exists, so it's what you'll have to deal with. Simply giving up and saying "well, Hamas are a bunch of religious nutjobs, so we're not even going to try" is a huge part of why things have escalated in the first place. Note how Hamas-levels of extremism doesn't have wide-spread support among the Palestinians on the west bank.
If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom? All of that in spite of religious nutjobs currently in government who support Jewish mass-murderers and have expressed views that are just as extreme as Hamas and are nothing short of genocidal? That is just as naïve, if not more so, than expecting Hamas to immediately come to their senses after lifting the blockage.
Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong.
First of all, I don't think that's an accurate characterization of life in Gaza. They're not literally in prison, their conditions aren't great (at all!) but definitely not the terrible conditions that that image conjures up.
> Hamas has blood on its hands, absolutely, but the idea that Israeli are poor victims who have never done anything wrong is just dead wrong.
I absolutely agree, Israel has not done anywhere near enough to improve conditions in Gaza and seek peace, especially in the last 15 or so years.
But you asked my plan - I'm far from being knowledgeable enough to answer that, but here's what I think the general outline should be:
1. Destroy Hamas. At this point, given the damage they've done, to Israelis, to their own citizens, and to the peace process - this is a must-do. Not sure what this means in practice, but probably need to capture or kill enough of their leaders to make them unable to continue operating as an organization.
2. Someone else needs to step in and help manage Gaza. The US thinks a bolstered PA can do this - Netanyahu claims this won't work, and Palestinians mostly dislike the PA. So I'm not sure who can fill this role in practice, but someone needs to do it. (I trust Biden a lot more than Netanyahu, btw).
As an aside, I think Israel should help rebuild Gaza, somehow, and help the people now stranded without a home. No idea how to do this in practice (I doubt anyone will be happy with Israeli contractors literally building buildings in Gaza, and don't think that'll be safe), but it's the moral thing to do.
3. Start making concrete steps towards peace. Start dismantling settlements, and find ways to bolster Palestinian voices for peace (instead of the reverse, which is what has happened over the last 15 years). Find other ways that improve the lives of Palestinians while maintaining Israeli security, I'm sure there are lots of ways that can be done.
4. Start a peace process. Any peace process, with anyone credible enough to do it. Israel cannot morally "give up" on peace, even if the Palestinians are currently unwilling to seek peace.
That's what I think should happen. I have very little faith this will actually happen though, except for part 1 of that.
> If you grew up in Gaza and are in your 20s now then you hardly remember a time before the blockade. What do you expect from the people of Gaza? After a life-time of desperation for them to come to an epiphany and lay down all protest and adopt carefully nuanced language in the hope that Israeli politicians will give them more freedom?
I expect that, once Hamas is destroyed, many people in Gaza will start speaking up against Hamas and the destruction they brought on their own people. Some Gazans are already saying as much.
Many countries have suffered defeat in war - Germany and Japan are good examples. They didn't all grow up wanting nothing more than violence because of the Allies bombing their countries. They became great allies of the US etc. I don't know why we think that Palestinians can't be the same, given that Israel actually takes concrete steps to repair the terrible damage wrought by this war.
The only way of destroying what Hamas is, is to start treating Palestinians humanely, and address their grievances so they actually see an alternative might work.
Neither Germany or Japan was subjected to an occupation this lengthy and brutal and expected not to lash out.
The situation on the west bank shows that stopping the rockets is an achievable goal. Extreme ... fine. The west is full of extreme organisations of all kinds that almost never hurt anyone because they're well-policed. That is a situation that would be a LOT more acceptable than the current situation.
> The only way of destroying what Hamas is, is to start treating Palestinians humanely, and address their grievances so they actually see an alternative might work.
The same was said about Daesh/IS/PIJ and this has turned out to be false.
The west have had plenty of organizations that did regularly hurt people despite being extensively policed until the conditions that created them were addressed, despite those conditions being far less extreme than full-on apartheid. E.g. take the IRA.
The situation in the West Bank shows it can be contained for some time, and while doing so you'll see the moderate groups' lose support as the situation drags on in favour of more extreme movements unless you actually address the underlying issue. E.g. consider how the support for Fatah has steadily declined on the West Bank, while support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad has massively increased, along with Lion's Den - a group that is only a year old, yet outpolled Fatah in Washington Institute polls earlier this year, and that was formed largely out of disaffection by Fatah's lack of action.
Any belief you'll be able to maintain a state of relative calm without addressing the oppression is a belief that a population of millions will just give up and resign themselves to living under an apartheid regime forever, and that's boundlessly naive.
> The same was said about Daesh/IS/PIJ and this has turned out to be false.
The populations under their control were not subjected to decades of occupation by an apartheid state, and they imposed themselves from the outside and were the ones to oppress the populations that lived under them. The notion they are comparable is bizarre, and I've never heard anyone say that about them.
And what you're trying to hide is that you're suggesting as an alternative: a single -muslim- state. In other words, you're trying to hide that you're pushing repression of everyone. Including muslims btw, just ask Iranians or let a Saudi pour you a few (excellent, but WTF strong) coffees, then talk to them about how happy they are with their state. And I think you'll find Saudi are a lot less extreme than Hamas (for one thing they'd never do something as "low" as picking up a gun. That's for peasants)
In other words: the only alternative you're giving for oppressing 2 million people is oppressing 15 million people (15 because Palestinians would also be oppressed under such a system).
And then there's the trap: you perpetuate the leftist "vision" that people start acting more extreme when they don't get 100% what they want. Of course, this only ever applies to leftists and whoever leftists consider victims. It doesn't apply to Israeli, for example. Giving THEM 100% what they want (Palestinians stay on their land, 2 state solution, no more rockets or attacks, cooperation) is not under consideration. They're not victims. It's also trivial to give unending examples of this not being true. But that's not the trap. This is just the one-sidedness of the argument. Of course if you get your one-state solution you don't want to admit you're calling for, it will immediately make 10 million people a LOT more extremist (never mind what will happen when the inevitable happens and Palestinians massacre in Israel again, and I don't mean since Oct 7, I mean like they've always done. Most Israeli ALSO can't leave, so they will do the one thing they can: fight)
But the trap is: Hamas are racial supremacists. They believe they are better, they will win, because they are extremist muslims. That's how their value system works. If they get what they want, your argument is that they will immediately stop extremism. Does this actually happen? Talk to an Iranian, a Sudanese, an Indonesian, a Kashmiri ... did this actually happen? No. When they got what they wanted, they immediately became 10x MORE extremist and attacked.
The one state solution that you hide you're calling for is not a solution to end apartheid. It will make a population of 10 million start an open civil war with a population of 5 million people. It will be a bloodbath, for entirely obvious reasons.
This is the trap: you say the one-state "solution" will solve the problem. Reality is that that solution will make things 100x worse, for everyone, since it will do what it did everywhere else this was tried: unending civil war with incredible amounts of casualties.
You're suggestion is putting out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
So: no thanks. Go fuck yourself.
Israel did not leave Gaza, though it made a show of doing so.
> Gaza elected Hamas who have been bombing Israel ever since.
Israel carried out a campaign directly aimed at discrediting Fatah and radicalizing the Palestinian population around the elections, and it paid off exactly as intended, with Hamas not only winning locally in Gaza, but an overall legislative majority.
Israel has also acted to preserve the status quo they acheived in that election by obstructing subsequent planned all-Palestine elections.
Just to be clear, what do you mean by this?
This thinking kind of reinforces what you're trying to stay away from. There are not just 'two sides' to this. And I'm not sure what you would envision as an HNer from the "other side": someone in support of Hamas? In support of the Palestinian people?
I'm only commenting here because I think the bias you fear expressing can still kind of appear in different ways.
I really do appreciate the approach you're taking here with attempting to allow for curious and thoughtful discussion about contemporary topics while being cognizant of the dangers.
I'd say there is of course a range of opinions and different narratives on both sides (from from actively seeking coexistence to humanitarian to pragmatic to nationalist to religious fundamentalist to having a deep personal hate for the other side).
Then you have all kinds of different groups, factions and third parties with their own allegiances and motivation.
However all of those pieces arrange themselves around a central conflict which does have exactly two sides in my opinion, which are the Israeli and Palestine people, respectively their claims to live on the land. You can see this rather easily by observing which groups view each other as mortal enemies and which merely as a nuisance.
There are - thankfully - lots of people trying to bridge the divide and not aligning themselves only with one side. This is where we all should be headed, but it doesn't change the fact that currently there are sides.
We're talking here about the conflict that has happened as a result of the Hamas attacks on October 7. Take a look at how CNN vs BBC vs The Guardian categorize the conflict. CNN describes it as the "Israel-Hamas War" (Reuters similarly uses "Israel and Hamas at war") while the BBC and Guardian list it as the "Israel-Gaza war" (and I'm pretty sure the Guardian previously used the same terminology as CNN). And you've described it as "Israeli people-Palestine people".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/israel-hamas-war
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-ga...
Its even funnier when that silence is interpreted as wishing for a pogrom, like, see a therapist? If there is 1,000 years to support that view of every society turning against you, the common denominator isn’t us!
>I want you to know something else, which is that the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas do not represent us, the Palestinian people, at all. We reject authority and we reject Abbas and all his ministers. I do not know whether you have heard of the security coordination agreement between the Zionist occupation and the Palestinian Authority. Years ago, the Palestinian Authority concluded an agreement under which it would serve the occupying entity in terms of security. That is, all the young Palestinian activists who fight the Zionist occupation in one way or another and the occupation cannot arrest them, the Palestinian Authority pursues them, arrests them, and hands them over to the occupation, and then no one knows the fate of that young man or that girl. These do not represent us, nor any other Palestinian. These are completely rejected in the Palestinian street, but unfortunately they are officially and internationally recognized by the United Nations and supported by the United States of America.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/was-hamas-electe...
Now if I were in Gaza my opinion is that what they are doing is stupid. They don't really have a choice but to like it and make the best of their situation with charity, tolerance and love. All the other plays lead to worse results. But there aren't many political bodies with less agency.
[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30...
From the article:
"In other words, Hamas’ absolute rule of Gaza is not what the Palestinians voted for back in 2006. In fact, since the median age of Gazans is 18, half of Hamas’ subjects weren’t even born when the election took place."
I cannot help but see most of the arguments that people make equating Hamas with Palestinians as bad faith. Explanations are not excuses and knowing why things are happening is the first real step towards fixing anything.
And, for the same reason, the ones that were born largely couldn't vote.
There's also the obvious elephant in the room that Israel is executing a disproportional response to the terror attacks and the conditions they're creating will only extend this conflict and create more terror. As the article states, it's pretty well understood that citizens need stable material conditions before voting really works well, otherwise they tend to trend towards the reactionary.
Israeli policy during the occupation is responsible for Hamas, and it existed before W had any foreign policy influence.
Blaming Bush for Hamas because he was somehow responsible for the elections happening is stupid. The elections happening was a good thing. Fatah stupidly rejecting the idea of a national unity government was a bad thing. Israel deliberately seeking to assure a Hamas victory by interfering with campaigning, and voter registration, conducting a targeted campaign of arrests of Palestinian politicians, and doing everything possible to make the Fatah-led PA look weak, complicit, and corrupt in Israel's favor in the immediate runup to the elections was horrible -- but predictable given the entire history of Israel actively promoting Hamas, from its founding, as a tool to divide Palestinians and assure that there was a public face of opposition less sympathetic to, particularly, the population of Israel's Western Allies (particularly the US) than the more secular nationalists of the PLO during the height of occupation, and Fatah as a political party once there was an entity to have political parties.
To me a smoking gun here is that Biden's administration wants the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza "after Hamas" (as an aside, I sincerely doubt Israel will be successful in destroying Hamas, but ofc even if they do there will just be a more radical group taking its place anyway); history shows pretty well that the US only installs a power when they know they will be a vassal/puppet of US interests. There's many examples but the most recent one is when we (I'm American) propped up the bogus Afghanistan "Government" only for it to instantly collapse and be replaced again by the Taliban the moment we withdrew.
Really hope there's a path forward that gives the Palestinians real autonomy and an end to the bloodshed. In reality, I expect this conflict to continue indefinitely and us to just continue supporting the occupation, which I find heartbreaking but my rational mind is convinced is the most likely outcome.
Instead of coming up with conspiracy theories we could consider what other options there are. There are effectively only three powers which could control Gaza if/when Hamas is defeat: Egypt, Israel and the PA.
Egypt certainly doesen't want anything to do with the region or Palestinians anymore. So US can only chose between supporting a direct Israeli occupation or a semi-indirect one (through the Palestinian Authority). I don't think the US government wants to install a puppet regime in Gaza, they'd rather have absolutely nothing to do with at all.
Tangential but when it comes to Afghanistan I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster.
> Palestinians real autonomy
Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades.
I'm sorry, but the US installing powers that are favorable to it is not a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy fact. How do you think Pinochet and others happened? It certainly wasn't organic (at least not entirely so).
Anyway, regarding the options, there's technically a few more like Jordan or other arab states, or a new organization arising (albeit in reality the US and others would intervene to stop them taking power). But beyond those quibbles I don't disagree with you that there's no good options, I'm just stating my belief that if we support organization X, it's because organization X is directly controlled by us or indirectly its incentives align well with our own.
> Well to some extent Hamas was the closest they got to that for decades.
Agreed fully, and that's one of the problems.
> I'm almost certain that stupidity and incompetence (and one might guess a good dose of corruption) rather than outright malice or imperialism were to blame for that entire disaster.
Why not both? Imperialism is a pretty stupid ideology, at least if one's goal is to keep one's country safe and powerful. If one's goal is to extract resources from one's own country at the cost of lots of bloodshed of your citizens and others', then it achieves the goal fine.
Yes, it was certainly a fact during the cold war however foreign policy is not static and changes pretty often. Even Iraq and to some extent Iraq (and certainly Afghanistan) didn't really fit the pattern that well. Considering that no other country benefited more from the US toppling Saddam than Iran did (considering it was a Shia majority state ruled by a Sunni minority, the inverse of Syria for instance).
The invasion of Afghanistan on the other hand was justifiable both on defensive and humanitarian grounds. While the aftermath was mostly botched, US had no interest in somehow subjugating it it long-term (IMHO imposing a "colonial" administration directly controlled by NATO/Western powers would've been the least bad option).
> more like Jordan or other arab states
None of them would ever accept that (after all Jordan willingly gave up the West Bank back in the 80s and I don't see why would they ever want to take it back even if Israel had no objections).
> (albeit in reality the US and others would intervene to stop them taking power).
Again before the US and other count stop it you need some regional powers who are willing to support this.
> X, it's because organization X is directly controlled by us or indirectly its incentives align well with our own.
At this point it seems to me that from the perspective of the US the middle east is more of a distraction. They don't have that many vital strategic interest in the region since US+Canada alone produce produce significantly more oil than all the Arab states combined.
> 20. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170510123932/http://hamas.ps/e...
Adding to show that the '67 borders are pretty generally supported. There's even support for them among some of the "from the river to the sea" crowd since the '67 borders touch both the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
> 2. Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.
> 3. Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and every Muslim.
The Arabs believe they took over the Levant fair and square in 637 and that the loss of any of that territory is an affront to Islam. Hamas’s charter reflects that.
Which in the context of the cited request for 1967 borders and right of return, could read to be an additional call for the right of return of Palestinians to the lands within the Israeli side of the 1967 borders.
In terms of international relations and power dynamics, the Palestinians have no real basis for any demands, they only can plead with their "allies" in the UN for some diplomatic influence, but they have no rights to holy sites, territory, supplies, money, infrastructure. They cannot functionally threaten the Israelis militarily. They have no economic purpose or key trade function that would curry them favor with other nations.
The one reason the world cares about them as opposed to the Tigray war or Azerbaijan-Armenia in modern terms (heard about them? No? Wonder why) is that they are in the middle east and the world cares about oil.
But the geopolitical significance of oil is waning, and will dramatically wane in the next decade as vast swathes of transportation infrastructure transition to BEVs.
The world does not care about "blessed sacred land". If Saudi Arabia doesn't care about it, no one else will. The current terrorist action was fomented by Iran to disrupt a fairly formalized Israel-Saudi alliance/alignment, and the Sunni Saudis are bigger blood enemies to the Shia Iranians than the Israelis are.
The Palestinians are a defeated people, and do not seem to realize there is a ticking time bomb that has nothing to do with Israel. They exit almost solely at the gracious of Qatar (humanitarian) and Iran (terrorist funding). If that money dried up, they are in very very very serious straits. They have no infrastructure, a limited economy, no trade, and are surrounded on all sides by Israel (who at a minimum distrusts them) or Egypt (who hate Palestinians from their 25 years of overseeing Gaza in the late 20th century).
The money is going to dry up in the next ten years. They have no infrastructure. No resources. No economy or trade. THEY CAN'T GO ANYWHERE. The Gazas (and Palestinians in general) have been on a 70 year long population explosion (think 6-8 children per female on average) that took them from 500k to 3-5 million people, which takes them from "big but manageable humanitarian crisis" to "unsustainable population in a crisis".
The Palestinians need to wake up that Israel, the enemy, is actually their only friend, and they need to make up with them very quickly. Of course they are paid not to be, so that is like the proverbial flying pigs.
Otherwise, they will starve in a horrifying manner.
In 637 the non-urban population of Palestine (incl. Galilee) was still majority Jewish - Justinian had only turfed them out of Jerusalem. There was no genocide in 637.
Furthermore, no one elected Hamas as the restoration of the caliphate and spokesperson for entire Muslim world. They’re actually not Isis.
I have no problem with Islam’s wars of conquest and civilization. I just find the victimhood mentality that’s been adopted in the 20th century to be undignified for such a culture.
Now when Israel is their colonizer, things are a bit different. Not only has Israel imposed a new language, culture and religion onto their lands, but they have also severely displaced them. No colonizer has done that to the Palestinians in the past, not even the British.
Modern Judaism permits conversion but refuses to promote or encourage it, and sometimes even goes out of its way to make it hard (especially some of the more conservative Orthodox). Hence, there has never been any encouragement for Palestinians to convert. It wasn’t always thus - John Hyrcanus forced the Idumeans to convert to Judaism; but that was over 2000 years ago now.
By contrast, Islamic conquerors always encouraged conquered peoples to convert to Islam, through a mixture of carrots and sticks. The same is true of Christianity.
Possibly, this is part of what sustains the Israel-Palestine conflict; if contemporary Judaism were pro-conversion, many of the Palestinians might have already become Jews by now.
The Muslims are the colonizers. Israel is just taking their land back. Who built the Temple Mount the Dome of the Rock is sitting on?
Israelis are not native to this land. Sharing a religion with one of many religions Palestinians have held in the past does not make the land indigenous to anyone except the Palestinians them selves. Just like Roman Catholics are not indigenous to the Vatican, not even the Roman Catholic minority in Romania.
European Jews have been a very real part of European history for dozens of generations. The history of European Jews is indeed a very rich history. They are a culture of their own, some even speak their own Germanic language (Yiddish). They are as European as me (an Icelander) and are indeed indigenous to Europe, not Palestine. The minority of European Jews who migrated to Palestine and later founded their own state on Palestinian lands did so by establishing a colony. This by definition makes them colonizers.
“Who built the Temple Mount the Dome of the Rock is sitting on?” Palestinians did, back before they converted to Islam, back when majority of Palestinians were still Jewish, and probably called the land Judea. Likewise, the Jews built the Temple Mount, back when they lived in historic Palestine. European Jews can claim that their ancestors built the Temple Mount, and they wouldn’t be wrong. In fact they can be proud of their ancestors. However, claiming that European Jews built the Temple Mount, that would be wrong.
This is no different than the question of “Who built the Pyramids?” Egyptians built the Pyramids. When the Egyptians built the Pyramids they practiced a different religion and spoke a different language. Since then they have been colonized multiple times over, by the Greeks, by the Romans, by the Byzantines, by the Umayyad Caliphate, by the Ottomans, by the French, by the British, etc. The Egyptians that built the Pyramids didn’t call them selves Egyptians and they probably didn’t call their land “Egypt”, It was still the Egyptians that built the Pyramids.
As a matter of academic interest, when would you say the statute of limitations runs out on the right of displaced peoples to reclaim their ancestral lands? If your answer is "it never runs out," then the descendants of the ancient Canaanites, Midianites, and Amalekites† would like a word ....
† According to the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites violently (and genocidally?) displaced these peoples; see, e.g., Num. 31, Josh. 10:40, 11:15. But it's not clearly established that this actually happened.
You shouldn't be doing that generally on HN, either, and unfortunately your comments (as I've been attempting to communicate to you) have swung too far in the flamewar direction in recent months (or maybe the last year or two, I'm not sure). You've been a good HN contributor for a long time before that, so if you'd please revert to status quo ante, we'd appreciate it.
River = the Jordan River
Sea = the Mediterranean sea
=> calling for the destruction of Israel. But sure, we'll take '67 as an intermediate step.
I don't know how to read that except the willingness to compromise on 1967 borders, as long as those ejected in 1948 can return to their land and become Israeli citizens.
Yes, they should also be allowed back and several countries have explicitly allowed such a thing.
> Do you truly believe a compromise can be reached with an organization that committed a massacre on the scale of October 7th? Personally, I'm willing to compromise a lot for peace (divide Jerusalem, give up the west bank, whatever. Fighting over land/religion is absurd), but I honestly don't believe that's what Hamas is aiming for. Their actions at least indicate otherwise.
I don't think compromise is an option that has legitimately been tried.
The Palestinian position is that Oslo and Camp David were not good faith compromises by Israel, but even if so Arafat made no counter-offer. He rejected the offers out of hand. Then the second Intifada started and ushered in Likud and Netanyahu which led us to where we are today.
As far as a Palestinian right-of-return to within Israel's borders. It would be the demographic end of a Jewish democratic Israel. It's the one thing that Israel absolutely will not and cannot compromise on. It's an unreasonable demand.
To my mind: Palestinians have never had effective leadership and they've been used as pawns by the other Arab nations. The lack of Palestinian leadership is not entirely the Palestinians' doing, at least since Arafat anyway. Israel has intentionally kept West Bank and Gaza leadership divided. Nonetheless, Palestinians are going to need to figure out a way to have effective leadership. Someone who is motivated and empowered to negotiate for peace, recognizing that Palestinians are not negotiating from a position of strength.
This is why those who claim Israel is a "western democracy" are liars. It's just an ethnostate with the veneer of democracy and westernism put upon it so we westerners don't see what our governments are supporting. Saying "we stole land from these people not even a century ago, but we can't allow them back because of democracy" is such a disgusting notion. It's also not even true; Israel has a population of just under 10 million people. You could give true right of return to every impacted Palestinian and still only dilute the proportion of zionist citizens by like what, a handful of %?
But no instead the only "right of return" that Israel recognizes is the right of Jews from anywhere in the diaspora to come and live on bloodsoaked land. Doesn't matter if you're from friggin Antarctica, you've got a home in Israel if you're Jewish! Doesn't that whole notion seem ridiculous to you?
In what world would that ever happen? Would those people ever be safe there?
And that’s just one of a dozen countries that tortured and killed Jews in the name of Allah.
For example: [Avi Shlaims book "Three Worlds"](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62918049-three-worlds)
There has been a longstanding and unsinkable narrative that, frustrated by the refusal of Jewish communities in Arab lands to move to the early Israel, an active campaign of bombings etc was launched by Israel itself, surreptitiously, in order to exarcerbate tensions already caused by 1948.
Of course, the fact that these communities had existed within the Arab world for centuries itself belies the notion that the Arabs wanted to exterminate them "for Allah". As anyone with even a passing knowledge of history can attest to.
Way before the foundation of Israel, my father and uncles were restricted in numerous ways because of their Jewish ancestry. For example there were quotas on the number of Jews allowed in universities.
Jews were frequently imprisoned there (including my father and his brothers) for the sole reason of being Jewish.
Let’s apply that argument to eg mid 20th century Europe. Let me ask you this directly: are you denying the holocaust?
It was for the more common reasons. To scapegoat the Jews while the government steals and does horrible things to its citizens.
(campaign of Mossad bombings targeting Jewish communities elsewhere in the Middle East, to force sectarian fault lines to implode - documented BY an Iraqi Jew whose father left Iraq, served in the IDF, then left for London where the daughter wrote a book detailing this very thing),
vs the long tradition of Muslims and Jews living peacefully side by side. The Caliph Umar, when he took control of Jerusalem from the Byzantine's, actually invited the scattered Jews BACK to Jerusalem. When Jews were being banished from Al-Andalus (Spain) after the Christian reconnaissance (Spanish Inquisition and all that), the Ottoman Sultan actually sent multiple ships to RESCUE them, which is why there was such a large Jewish presence in N Africa.
There is simply NO comparison between the Jewish experience under Muslim rule, and the Jewish history of repression under European rule. None.
And then Zionism came along. If not for that, you would be Iraqi today. That's the sad truth.
The fact is, they were expelled from those countries. EVEN IF it was “safe” being an iraqi jew in 1850, it was not in 1950, and it is definitely not today. So what is your point?
Life wasn’t equal as a Jew in Iraq, and that was one of the best examples one could find. And it shouldn’t matter that Israel was formed - if Jews were safe there they should always be safe.
That's why I laid the blame on Zionisms door.
And in Iran, where Mossad did NOT get to strut their stuff, the rather large Jewish community exists to this day.
Anyway, enough said. I've made this point as clearly and carefully as I could - and yet still got bizarre accusations of somehow being a Holocaust denier (not by you, but another yahoo who was dealt with).
It doesn’t matter that much. The Muslim world these days is deeply antisemitic.
Oh, go to hell with that fake question. What I said was DIRECTLY about Jewish communities living in the Muslim world, for centuries. Any half-decent professor of history would agree with what I said. It's not even remotely controversial nor contested by any serious historian, Jewish, Christian or Muslim.
You're desperately clutching at straws, trying to imply that anyone here denied the centuries long EUROPEAN history of pogroms and expulsions, from Britain and Spain in the 14th to 15th centuries, to the repeated pogroms throughout Western, Central and Eastern Europe, culminating in the 20th century where much of Europe COLLABORATED with the Germans to butcher 8+ million people far away from any front lines, 6 million of whom were Jews.
Why are you so desperate to put your words in other people's mouth? Are YOU trying to deny the Holocaust? Hmm ...
I asked you a direct question that followed from your argument, where you proposed essentially a global jewish conspiracy, based on strawman arguments.
As an answer, I got an angry rant attacking me personally, citing an unknown authority (“Any half decent professor”) as your source in an attempt to bully and discredit me.
Much Appreciated.
Sibling comment gave a direct example from personal experience countering your claim.
Heck, even at the time of the 2006 elections, an overwhelming majority of Palestinians including Hamas supporters also supported a peace agreement with Israel, and moderation of what was then Hamas's platform. (The latter occurred, the former not so much -- in large part because Israel stopped negotiating when the executive of the PA wanted Hamas -- the party that won a majority in the legislative elections -- involved in the negotiations.)
How do you think the 1967 borders became the current borders? Egypt shut down Israel’s access to the Red Sea and massed troops on Israel’s border. Then Jordan and Iraq sent troops. And then Israel kicked everybody’s ass and occupied the Sinai, the Gaza Strip (which had been occupied by Egypt) and the West Bank (which had been annexed by Jordan).
Plenty Palestinians oppose the war and want peace. This is the equivalent.
In their eyes, to rid of kahanists like Netanyahu and his cronies, who have subjugated them for decades, subjected them to a death by a thousand paper-cuts, they don't demand Jordan and Turkey besiege and bomb Tel Aviv.
Given the population density in the Strip and lack of trust in Israel by Egypt on refugees, smaller-scale military solution followed by a political solution must have been pursued but instead the majority sentiment in Israel was all-out revenge (and collective punishment very much okay: https://archive.is/t9pmT). It has been downhill from there.
I’m reminded of an excellent Middle Eastern restaurant in California that I went to on occasion during the Second Intifada. The had Hebrew- and Arabic language newspapers. The patrons (I assume) mostly had some form of Middle Eastern or Jewish heritage, but I don’t really know which. The falafel sandwiches were fantastic. The only sides were things like tahini and harissa. As far as I know, basically everyone who ate there wanted peace and didn’t really want any particular group to “win” the ongoing conflict.
I think the owners were Lebanese-American, but it didn’t matter.
The theory goes: if Hamas were to embarrass Israel on the public stage with a humiliating attack, this might provoke an overwhelmingly disproportionate response by Israel against Gaza, cementing the public perception of Gazans as the victims in the conflict even in light of the 10/7 aggression - and Hamas as their freedom fighters. This in turn would attract public sympathy for Hamas, bolstering their political prospects in Palestine, meanwhile derailing Saudi peace talks that might have resulted in formal recognition of the Palestinian Authority as the legitimate sovereigns. (Neutralizing peace talks between the two greatest enemies of one of Hamas's greatest benefactors, Iran, could only be viewed as a nice "plus").
[0] https://www.arabbarometer.org/media-news/survey-sheds-light-... [1] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-sh... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMxHU34IgyY
Take a look at how CNN vs BBC vs The Guardian categorize the conflict. CNN and NBC News describes it as the "Israel-Hamas War" (Reuters similarly uses "Israel and Hamas at war") while the BBC and Guardian list it as the "Israel-Gaza war" (and I'm pretty sure the Guardian previously used the same terminology as CNN).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/israel-hamas-war
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-ga...
https://www.reuters.com/world/israel-hamas/
https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c2vdnvdg6xxt
https://www.nbcnews.com/Israel-Hamas-war-Gaza-Strip-conflict
The ordinary people have far more in common with each other than they do with the leaders who are keeping this war running.
There is a lot of hopeful thinking about humanity being conjured out of thin air, evidence on the ground is to the contrary. Many people on the ground support the conflict and expect to win. A great majority of Palestinians supported the attacks in January. A great majority of Israelis insist on a military response taken to its conclusion.
This is not the case of peoples being held hostage by their leaders. They might not like their leaders but they would put new ones in power who were substantially the same.
https://news.stanford.edu/report/2023/12/05/palestinians-vie...
https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-sh...
Consider that asking about support for Hamas attacks once the retaliation has stoked up hate is inherently going to be strongly affected by views shaped by the large-scale invasion and bombing, especially when a portion of those polled were in the war zone.
Now consider the extent to which provoking this kind of reaction was Hamas' goal in light of polls showing people wanting them out in a situation where their legitimacy as a political leadership kept dropping with each year without another election.
> This is not the case of peoples being held hostage by their leaders. They might not like their leaders but they would put new ones in power who were substantially the same.
After this? Maybe. Before this, the poll above shows people wanted them out, per above. Which might make one want to ask why the Israeli leadership is so easy to goad into over-reaction and what that says about the extent to which they want peace, because given the sharp but predictable changes in polling this reaction is clearly entirely counter-productive.
At the same time, it is a demonstration of exactly why this reaction is counter-productive, because you can expect that exact same anger grow in a Palestinian population where the vast majority had nothing to do with the attacks, nor have ever voted for - or even had a chance to vote for - Hamas (~80% of the current population of Gaza were either not born or not of voting age when Hamas won a minority of the vote), and who before this wanted Hamas out. Expect to see a massive resurgence in support for Hamas and even more extreme groups, and the net outcome being to have made Israel's security situation significantly worse.
It has also massively damaged support and sympathy for Israel internationally. E.g. many political forums I'm in used to see it as distasteful or too extreme to describe Israel as an apartheid state just a couple of years ago, while it is a widely supported view today, and the Israeli reaction is regularly described as ethnic cleansing with little opposition to the use of that term.
Put another way: Hamas has gotten exactly what it wanted out of this, and Israel has harmed its case and harmed its security massively.
If I were to make a prediction, it would be that unless Israel massively changes direction very quickly, the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks will contribute to making resistance to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement start to crumble.
So > the Israeli leadership is so easy to goad into over-reaction
From Israely leadership perspective it's NOT an overreaction, so it IS easy.
And in general "overreaction" is too emotionally charged. What would be an adequate reaction? Send us your X women we'll rape them? How do you measure "over"ness of a response to mass rape and torture?
And as I point out "overreaction" was the mildest term I'd consider using. Emotionally charged would be to call it mass murder and ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. An adequate reaction would be not to brutally murder civilians and carry out extensive war crimes.
> How do you measure "over"ness of a response to mass rape and torture?
By lack of adherence to international law. By any willingness to cause mass murder and engage in ethnic cleansing.
At the very least, by the time the IDF response had led to the murder of more civilians than the attack of terrorists they are hunting, they ought to consider that it is no more morally acceptable for them to murder civilians than the other side, and they've become what they claim to want to destroy.
Consider that if it was reasonable for Israel to murder many times more civilians in response to a Hamas attack on civilians, it would be equally reasonable for Palestinians to murder many times more Israeli civilians than that again in response to the IDF attack on Palestinian civilians.
But nobody have an inherent right to a reaction they consider fair, if that reaction involves brutally violating the rights of innocent third parties.
It's no less terror when the IDF kills innocent civilians than when Hamas does, and seeking to legitimise it is no less immoral.
Also, I'm not sure who you mean by "they". Let's talk about specific people: past governments are mostly dead, current generation was born into this situation the same as Palestinians were born into theirs. "They" (current Israeli population) can't end the occupation; there are no feasible options. So what "they" should do in case a neighboring nation kills a thousand of "them"? Again, these people have nothing to do with occupation. The kids at that rave party most likely considered themselves as far left (just given the demographics). I myself am far left; I'm a part of "them", and I'm against the occupation, but no one is able to come up with a solution that would satisfy both sides.
So when you talk about "them", whom do you mean? Who'd you expect would find a solution if you can't even solve this smaller moral dilemma of what your country's response should be in case of Oct. 7?
edit: like, how can you overreact if no one can say what "non-over" reaction should be?
In September 2022 armed struggle was the most popular option for resolving the situation, support for that went up in Sept 2023. [1]
"32% support and 67% oppose the idea of a two-state solution"
Palestinians don't like their governments, this does not mean they would have governments that acted substantially differently. Support for violence is widespread and predates the Oct 7 attacks and Israeli response.
> Before this, the poll above shows people wanted them out, per above.
The older survey above did not address violence. Not liking your government does not imply that you oppose all of their general positions.
The change is well within the margin of error given the poll size. It is also a question that does not in any way tease out how many of those support atrocities like the Hamas attacks vs. legal and legitimate armed resistance of an occupied population against the occupier (Israel is still considered an occupier by both the UN and EU due to the extent of their control). As such it's not relevant in response to the sentence of mine you quoted.
The other survey asked a very different question, specifically on views on the cease-fire specifically in Gaza. If we're going to compare polls that ask entirely different questions, it's far more reasonable to interpret that as directly contradictory to support for those kinds of attacks prior to the Israeli retaliation than it is to assume abstract support for armed struggle as a long-term means to solve the conflict as a whole implies support for a specific kind of action.
As it is, I stand by my claim that you can't meaningfully say anything about the pre-Israeli retaliation views on attacks of the type Hamas carried out when interviewing a population that at that point had been subject to a full-scale invasion, extensive bombing, and many thousands dead.
What we can say something about is about the specific questions people were asked in surveys, none of which to my knowledge included questions about large terror attacks on civilians.
> "32% support and 67% oppose the idea of a two-state solution"
"which was presented to the public without providing details of the solution" is key here. The poll I linked got 50% for “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” A key part of the problem with asking open-ended about a two-state solution is that it forces people to impose their own idea of what that would mean in terms of borders and concessions from each side. E.g. if you were to ask about a two-state solution that involves Israel maintaining control over their illegal settlements in the West Bank, you're certainly likely to get far more opposition than the poll I linked.
As such what the difference in numbers tells us is just that the exact form of a two-state solution would have a significant impact on the potential for it to lead to peace.
> The older survey above did not address violence. Not liking your government does not imply that you oppose all of their general positions.
I did not suggest they did. It showed people wanted Hamas out, and replaced by the PA, and wanted them to give up their independent armed units, as I stated. The statement people were asked to agree or disagree with was "The PA should send officials and security officers to Gaza, to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up its separate armed units"
Not wanting to give up all violence for an occupied population is unsurprising - it'd be far more surprising if most of a population of which the vast majority was born after the Oslo accords were signed yet has seen no signs of progress would believe in negotiation. It'd also be entirely unreasonable to demand of an occupied population to want to give up their legal right to armed resistance.
There is, however, a vast chasm between legitimate armed struggle and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
[1] https://www.awrad.org/en/article/10719/Wartime-Poll-Results-...
In regards to the 60% you quote, the question was framed as "How much do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 7th?"
Given the majority of Gaza has trouble accessing the news/electricity, 95% don't trust Israel's news (in the same survey), what they know about Oct 7 is not what we know about Oct 7. Whether you and I believe it or not, there are plenty who think all the targets on Oct 7 were military, any atrocities are fake news, etc. And for a people suffering under blockade for 16 years, including a year of weekly peaceful protests in 2018-2019 that were repeatedly met with violence by the IDF (~200 killed, thousands maimed/disabled), living in slums with little to no electricity [1], seeing their lives deteriorate year after year as the world has forgotten them - it would not be surprising at all for them to support a "military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance."
Furthermore, we're talking about a survey taken in the midst of war where 46% have lost their homes (same survey you shared), 80% of Gaza is displaced, and all the thousands of civilian and children deaths and tens of thousands of maiming and mutilations etc. Hospitals destroyed. Bakeries and water towers bombed. Journalists and health care workers murdered. ... Unclear how many, but probably all of the population has PTSD; 90% of the children had PTSD back in 2021 [2]. So in that context, in the midst of such immense suffering, the answer to this question should not be surprising at all. It is completely rational.
However, it would not be accurate for us to conflate their answer with supporting atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct 7 (which is not something it seems the survey asked about).
>> Many people on the ground support the conflict Re: Gaza, the survey you link says 90% "support a ceasefire that includes a mutual cessation of hostilities." So I don't think it's accurate to say the civilians of Gaza support this conflict.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/harsh-living-conditions-in... [2] https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/4497/New-Report:-91%25...
>>>> post-edit I had missed that the survey parent comment linked was completed before Oct 7. My bad.
Remember poster: Despite the Romulan's insistence, There...are...four...lights!
But joke about it. Who cares? Just a bunch of people out of sight, out of mind, getting blown to bits day in day out.
Hilarious isn't it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=daliaawad, My experience as a Gazan girl getting into Silicon Valley companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26251143 - Feb 2021 (460 comments).
Someone who knows Dalia has been in touch with us, but at least at that time, they unfortunately had lost contact with her and don't know if she's still alive.
Also this YC startup:
Launch HN: Manara (YC W21) – Connect Middle East engineers with global companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849054 - Jan 2021 (104 comments)
---
Some other threads over the years (I just looked up Gaza, of course there are also many Palestinians on HN from the West Bank and other places):
Lifehacker: Tarek Loubani on 3D-Printing in Gaza - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20623545 - Aug 2019 (68 comments)
Gaza: Coding in a conflict zone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18128432 - Oct 2018 (88 comments)
Marc Benioff joins Valley notables backing Gaza’s first coding academy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13374027 - Jan 2017 (137 comments)
How to Get More Women in Tech: Lessons from a Hackathon in Gaza - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13240777 - Dec 2016 (12 comments)
Mentoring in Gaza's first hackathon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11858963 - June 2016 (152 comments)
Mentor startups in Gaza - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9267716 - March 2015 (63 comments)
Wireless in Gaza: the young entrepreneurs beating the blockades - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8715085 - Dec 2014 (54 comments)
What It's Like to Build a Startup in Gaza - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8404414 - Oct 2014 (80 comments)
(It is heartbreaking that you have to add "we don't know if Dalia is alive" when talking about her.)
Edit: suspiciously this is downvoted suddenly as well as lots of other unrelated posts of mine. Looks like you can't have a responsible discussion on the internet these days...
"Internet Access High-speed Wi-Fi is available throughout the country in homes and in cafes and restaurants throughout the city. Additionally, local banks have publicly available WIFI that can be accessed 24/7 from outside the building. The Wi-Fi is stable and reliable and 3G is also available in the West Bank, Palestine."
I took a few suitcases of clothes to Egypt last week to try to get to the kids of our employees in Gaza, the ones whose existing coats and stuff are in rubble with any toys memories and belongings they had. Getting them through Raffa is not easy.
From the article:
> The Wi-Fi is stable and reliable and 3G is also available in the West Bank, Palestine.
> There are shops all around Hebron, including many that are within walking distance from the Excellence Center where travelers can purchase a SIM card and add more minutes to their phone plan.
Of course that doesn't much diminish their grievances which is based on lost land and and lack of freedom of movement.
So no, people in Gaza are not better off than people in Egypt. Though they are closer than I would have guessed.
What is really interesting is that unemployment rate for PL is 25.7pc vs Egypt's 7pc. So the average income for PL is higher! 4610 v 4100
Also interesting is that PL has a higher life expectancy.
Sadly, both are very corrupt.
IMO this would require that both Putin and Zelensky do not stay in power.
Young men there do have trouble working internationally. And they do have legitimate fears. But the fears are more along the line of being conscripted and sent to the front lines, and not the rather insignificant risk of drones.
I am willing to entertain the idea that there is some relationship between them but it is very hard to do this when you cannot be bothered to explain in plain English why you think these two conflicts are related and in what manner? What aspects are you referring to?
It can be frustrating when someone tries to make a strong point, but focuses mainly on the flourish and does not actually explain any reasoning -- this doesn't contribute to intellectual exploration since without explaining your reasoning, there is zero chance you can convince any thoughtful person to change their mind.
Minsk agreements were impossible to uphold and Russia never attempted to do so from the beginning, it was showed upon then much weaker Ukraine as Ukraine was in no position to defend itself then, it is different now.
When you're on the side of women and children, who lose in every conflict, everyone else gets confused because they expect you to pick one of the men's teams.
I know it's not quite as clear-cut in terms of age and sex who fights and who suffers, but I thought she made an excellent broader point about not picking any side other than those who are being harmed.
Both sides have been harmed. The war is about reducing continuing harm from an organisation that literally said that this was just the start of things...
It is the dominator culture, which feminism until the third wave was trying to abolish. Fourth wave feminism is a product of it.
So men don't lose in every conflict? Countries are "men's teams"?
I'm sorry but this is infantilizing as well as brutally sexist.
Current estimates suggest 2/3 of civilian deaths in Gaza consist of women and children. That leaves 1/3 of deaths being men. But this is disregarded altogether because sexist rhetoric is acceptable when you're a radical feminist UwU.
I can't find exact numbers easily, but a Turkish source said in 2023-November:
> The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the death toll from Israeli’s ongoing intensified onslaught on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 has jumped to 10,328 people. Among the killed are 4,237 children and 2,719 women, Gaza-based Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at a press conference. (https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-death-toll-...)
10328 dead. 2719 were women. 4237 were children. Someone's missing-- oh, must be 3372 men.
It turns out men and children also comprise 2/3 of deaths right now. In raw numbers women are actually the least-affected of all demographics in the current conflict, but the narrative is touted that women have it worse. (The NYT corollary: black women always have it worse.)
To claim that women are the biggest losers in every conflict is histrionic bullshit. Men just don't count because we're stupid enough to defend them, while everybody loses in war-- children, most of all.
Nevertheless, even if the little elite that decides the fate of the peace wanting majority is 100% men, what does that now mean for suffering little men vs women?
The Israeli army btw has a surprisingly high percentage of women.. do now more men or women suffer? Please just let's stop with the nonsense, humans suffer.
Regardless of who wins, does that country now have to cherish and celebrate the men for what they did?
Do we look at human progress overall as "something done by men"? Because the vast majority was done by men. Do we look at cities as things "made by men"?
You can't have it both ways. Women either take credit and responsibility for contributions to society or they don't. Very few women in governments which decided to give voting rights to women, very few making decisions. Is giving women the right to vote an achievement from men? It's ridiculous.
If doing that involves building coalitions with people who don't care about men dying then so be it. If they do care then so be it. The important thing is where the opinion goes regarding war. What motivates it deserves discussion, but as long as the direction is good that is the most important thing settled.
We're also in a situation where he knows that dragging out the war might be the best strategy for him personally, which worries me greatly.
He's already in escalation with Lebanon: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/10/violence-escalates...
Of course, even if that somewhat far-fetched scenario comes true we'll probably be up to at least 40,000 Gazans killed :/
It's too easy for people in America and Europe to sit at their desks and repost propaganda on social media in favor of "their side".
There are also plenty of Israelis who frequent HN, btw (like me).
Reporting this devide between religious hardliners and more liberal people stopped with the Hamas and Gaza attacks. Since then, it basically comes down to equating Israel as a nation (ignoring the fact that policy is made governments) with all Israelians (ignoring opposition to the current Israelian government) with all jews everywhere else. Ehy am I saying this? Because every critique of Israel as nation, and the policies of the current government, have been almost immediately been called out as being anti-semitic.
I think that does a disservice to everyone: jews, because it makes ever jew kind of a target for people oposing Israel (after all Israel is representative for each and every jew, if you believe certain articles). It makes it harder for Israelian opposition forces to get traction and it squarely devides Arabs / Muslims from jews, making dialogue extremely hard.
One can critizie Israel as a nation without being an anti-semite. One can also be supportive of Gazan civilians without supporting Hamas. By preventing this discourse, nobody is gaining anything.
The main thing that upsets Israelis is when the criticism is:
1. Specific only to Israel, and/or far harsher on Israel than on other similar countries for no reason.
2. The criticism offers no path by which Israel is allowed to defend itself. It's totally legit (and morally must be done) to criticize Israel if it does bad things - but if literally every action that Israel takes is criticized as being "too much", the end result can only be "Israel cannot do anything".
Btw, small language nitpick - the correct term is "Israeli" not "Israelian", at least in English.
Honestly, I have no idea how solve this besides some larger power stepping in. And that won't hapoen for all kinds of reasons. Displacing all Gazans isn't a solution neither so, and if tried it would isolate Israel internationally. And by extension of that risking of deviding the world at large into supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestinians, in which case this whole thing could blow up in everyones faces.
> Honestly, I have no idea how solve this besides some larger power stepping in.
Honestly, what needs to happen is completely obvious to everyone. The only way peace will happen is if there is a two state solution in which Palestinians get some land (presumably the WB, Gaza, and/or land swaps for existing settlements that are hard to move). And Israel gets some security assurances.
The only problem is that there have been no leaders on either side willing to reach such a deal, or at least, we haven't had leaders on both sides willing to reach a deal at the same time.
Re bombing: Using unopposed air power to wreck civil infrastructre is pretty much the definition of terror bombing, we can call startegic bombing if you want. Point is, this didn't work once since it was first tried, small scale, in WW1 and at an unprecedented scale in WW2. It didn't work in Vietnam neither. Or Iraq, the Balcans... The difference between an air strike resulting in 20 colleteral casualties and a suicide bomber (which Hamas hasn't used so far if I am not mistaken) doing the same thing is the means and available resources.
For the very same reason I am utterly opposed to drone warfare as done by the West in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan, among others.
It isn't done to wreck civil infrastructure, it's done to attack Hamas that is cynically using that civil infrastructure for itself.
> The difference between an air strike resulting in 20 colleteral casualties and a suicide bomber (which Hamas hasn't used so far if I am not mistaken) doing the same thing is the means and available resources.
Well the intent is a big difference too. Trying to kill civilians on purpose vs. air striking valid military targets.
Though yes of course, if Hamas had the means of bombing Israel with something stronger than what it's using now, no doubt it would do so. Imagine that they ever get those means - a rocket that Iron Dome can't stop for example - the direct result of that would be Israel being forced to attack Gaza with far more force.
Also, Hamas not using suicide bomers? Are you kidding? They've been using them for dozens of years in order to disrupt peace processes, among other things. Even after October 7th, there have been additional terror attacks that Hamas has claimed credit for (though I think it was stabbings, not a suicide bomber specifically, not sure.)
Re bombing and airstrikes: For not having the purpose of wrecking civilian infrastructure, the Israeli airforce sure did a great job at wrecking it regardless. And far more force, how? Cracking out the nukes?
The best strategy for Israel would have been to show retraint, because now Israel is slowly ending up as the villain of this story.
This rings so hollow to me. People were out protesting Israel the day of the October 7th attacks, which was before Israel had done anything! In the eyes of many people in the world, Israel is guilty, period, no matter what it does.
Not to mention, and this is also a pretty important point - Israel showing initial restraint would've made it look weak, which could easily have meant that this war would've turned into a multi-state regional conflict. Hezbollah for weeks was watching from the sidelines, deciding whether to join the conflict or not. Had they done so, casualties on all sides would be far far higher.
People seem to forget that the way to stop wars is to make the so costly as to not be worth it, which you don't do by showing restraint.
> For not having the purpose of wrecking civilian infrastructure, the Israeli airforce sure did a great job at wrecking it regardless.
That's a very sad consequence of the fact that Hamas uses that civilian infrastructure, thus making it effectively not civilian any more.
> And far more force, how? Cracking out the nukes?
C'mon. Israel could easily attack and kill far more people. Just look at actual mass slaughters that have happened.
Israel isn't coming anywhere close to what it could do if it wanted. Unlike Hamas, it isn't constrained by capability.
Also, it is now doing a ground offensive which is causing far more Israeli soldier casualties, instead of continued bombing.
You increase the cost of war by increasing the wealth of both sides. People with nothing spend their lives more easily than people with much.
The IDF is the heavy weight in this conflict, the Goliath and not the David. And when the Goliath, the heavy weight, continues punching the weaker foe, there is a point where he looks more like the baddy. Regardless of what the other party did initially. Not sure Israel can afford loosing support from its allies.
What does drive me crazy so, is the argument of "but they used civilian buildings, so they were legitimate targets". That's not how this works, and that it doesn't work that way is one of the reasons why asymetrical warfare is so damn hard. That argument didn't fly in WW2, and it doesn't fly now.
As the stronger party, an overreaction doesn't make you look strong, it makes you look butt hurt. The US did after 9/11 as well, and it got them nowhere. Restraint, with the hint of being able to use much more severe measures, makes you look strong as oppossed to be a bully. Goes dor every conflict at every level throughout history, not just the current one in Gaza.
The next step is up to them to figure out, but "commit war crimes" isn't an acceptable answer. Those pointing out the war crimes don't have to pitch an alternative to war crimes and hope the idea is accepted or whatever. Just stop killing civilians, then reassess.
Just to clarify exactly where I sit morally: I do not find it acceptable to kill 10 civilians in retaliation for 1 civilian being killed, nor do I find it acceptable that such 10x revenge killing of civilians is allegedly done in the name of saving civilians. Such statements tell me that the ones making them, don't view Palestinians as civilians to be saved. Whereas I don't believe 1 Palestinian civilian life is any more or less important than 1 Israeli civilian life.
The solution to getting international law implemented is enforcement, just like any other law. Enforcement ... on Hamas. And that is totally lacking. Hell, what the IDF is doing is the only thing being done. Everything you suggest comes down to punishing Israel for attempting to enforce international law, BECAUSE Hamas kills civilians. Does it really need to be stated that this will achieve the opposite of your stated aims? That it will lead to much more death in the future?
> The next step is up to them to figure out, but "commit war crimes" isn't an acceptable answer.
Firstly, Israel is not committing war crimes. IF infrastructure is used for military purposes, it can be targeted. Hamas uses hospitals, mosques, UN compounds, ... as bases to launch attacks from, to kidnap and store hostages.
Secondly, clearly committing warcrimes is OK. Simply put: your suggestion would forgive war crimes by Hamas (and Palestinian civilians), and encourage more of them, by giving a LARGE reward to war crimes. How can you make this statement and say it is against war crimes?
> I do not find it acceptable to kill 10 civilians in retaliation for 1 civilian being killed, nor do I find it acceptable that such 10x revenge killing of civilians is allegedly done in the name of saving civilians.
The problem, of course, is that it's really Hamas, not Israel, that's killing civilians. Palestinian civilians are forced, at gunpoint, to stay in buildings that are about to be bombed.
You suggest letting this tactic (which is a war crime, of course) stand.
To put it simply: the UN (the WHO specifically) helped Hamas execute wounded people brought into the emergency room at Al Shifa hospital. This has gone without consequences for Hamas, but it was also a war crime on the part of WHO doctors. And before you say this sounds like a conspiracy ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Al-Shifa_Hospital...
At its core, your one-sided argument attempts to reduce the issue to a "with Israel or with Hamas" false dichotomy, which doesn't help the discussion here. I am pro civilian, and the civilians deaths are, as we speak, racking up in Palestine, so that is where we need to look to literally stop the bleeding. Preventing future harm (ensuring safety) to civilians in Israel and in Palestine is something we can discuss how to do after we stop the ongoing harm to them.
Purely political ultimatums, like insisting on destroying Hamas before the civilian bombings stop, don't help the peace process, and they're made by people who openly reject peace via an equitable, 2 state solution.
So, I'll reiterate: Israel is currently bombing civilians, and should stop, so aid can enter and the civilians can be helped and perhaps peace can someday be achieved. But bombing Palestinian civilians (read: NOT Hamas, mostly civilians) only harms the chance of peace (which is why Bibi is doing it).
No amount of twisted excuses justifies dropping a JDAM on a residential apartment building full of civilian men, women, and children. No, not "every single building we collapsed was launching rockets". Implausible. No, not "we got a cell phone ping from a Hamas dude inside the building". Does not justify the bombing. No, not "we warned people via the Internet we cut off from them". They have a right to remain in their home, unbombed. No, not "they had a human shield". The goal is to save all civilian lives, not just Israeli ones, and "human shield" lives are worth exactly as much as any other life, Israeli or otherwise, so killing the human in question is also unacceptable.
Maybe there are no good options, but that isn't an excuse to commit war crimes via indiscriminately bombing civilians. The ground troops currently killing Hamas fighters seem totally reasonable, were they not paired with attacking civilians, blocking of international aid, indiscriminate bombing, etc. Perhaps a better one would have been to appeal to the UN before killing over ten thousand civilians via terror bombing. Israel may think itself the judge, jury, executioner, and enforcer for international law, but it is not. Indeed, the consensus of the international community is that Israel should stop acting out of emotion and Bibi's politics, and stop their terror bombing, so we can all take a breath and see what peace or resolution can be found by the international community.
As an aside, in the following quote, you're literally talking about Israeli bombs exploding children and collapsing entire apartment buildings on entire families, so obviously a sensitive subject. Your heated feelings aside, I think it's inappropriate for you to try to gaslight people on such a grim matter:
> The problem, of course, is that it's really Hamas, not Israel, that's killing civilians
I doubt the victims would agree with such a hurtful lie, were they not exploded by a JDAM. Consider what the victims would have preferred Israel do. Really put yourself in their shoes, we are all human beings here: suppose a Hamas fighter really did flee into a tunnel which passes under your huge, multistory apartment block. Would you be alright with Israel leveling the whole block, killing you, your entire family, your neighbors, your friends?
Ok. Please explain how you'll get Hamas to stop firing. They have sworn not to stop firing, literally never. Even if Israel surrenders and lets them kill all Israeli (their stated intention) they would still not stop. They've actually gone on TV to say that.
Israel is not bombing civilians. IDF is bombing terrorist targets. The reason civilians die is that Hamas is forcing these people, at gunpoint, to stay in buildings Hamas KNOWS will be bombed, while firing at IDF soldiers from within those buildings.
So please explain what will make Hamas stop firing? Because if the answer is enforcement, you're just suggesting doing what the IDF is doing ... Do you seriously have the slightest doubt Hamas will have any qualms about shooting at whoever "the international community" happens to be?
> ... and see what peace or resolution can be found by the international community.
The international community will help rebuild Hamas, because it'll get them political wins. After which much more people will die.
> ... Would you be alright with Israel leveling the whole block, killing you, your entire family, your neighbors, your friends?
You don't get how Hamas works at all. They don't incidentally run behind civilians. Hamas is not hiding behind civilians. Hamas is using human shields. They are shooting at Palestinians, regularly killing a bunch of them (it'll be blamed on Israel anyway, and even if it isn't ...) forcing them to stand between them and IDF soldiers, locking them up, without food, in buildings they are operating from.
Given what happened to Israeli soldiers, and what Hamas has done in the past, YES, I would like the army to use weapons to attempt to blast us out, knowing the potential consequences. Compared to being tortured and put in full harms' way, constantly threatened by terrorists, yes, I'd prefer the "shorter pain".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_Hospital#2007_Fatah%E...
Hamas threatened the WHO doctors to help them execute people brought into the emergency room. Yes, I like to fantasize that that would be past my limits and I'd actually prefer to be executed, even try to kill someone asking me that, rather than help.
As for your demands, nobody has to explain how to get Hamas to do anything, because that is a goal whose priority is secondary to preservation of civilian lives against the terror bombing of civilians which is ongoing as we speak. Israel must stop, and only THEN can we discuss how to deal with the next issue. The priorities are, in order of highest to lowest
1. Stop violence currently being perpetrated against civilians (address most immediate ongoing harm)
2. Stop blocking aid to civilians (address less immediate ongoing harm)
3. Discuss/Negotiate security for civilians (address future harm)
3 doesn't come before 1 or 2.
Not just the civilian casualties on /one/ side of the wall, /right/?
These are actually simple questions (yes or no format):
> We're discussing how to minimize the civilian casualties happening as we speak, right?
> Not just the civilian casualties on /one/ side of the wall, /right/?
If your goal isn't that, you should speak up, because that is currently the goal of most of everyone else. Security considerations and guarantees for Palestine and Israel from each other don't come until after that goal is achieved.
I'm going to write that again for emphasis, since you've tried to change the topic to it twice now:
--> Security considerations and guarantees for Palestine and Israel from each other don't come until after that goal is achieved. <---
As it is, you seem a bit distracted from the goal of minimizing the ongoing civilian casualties happening as we speak. Focus. We can discuss your question after, and only after, the civilian deaths stop racking up.
===> Security considerations and guarantees for Palestine and Israel from each other don't come until after that goal [of stopping ongoing civilian casualties happening as we speak] is achieved. <===
For now, please take the time to read the post you just responded to, as it directly addresses that subject, and you seem to have ignored it, based on your lack of answers for the 2 questions contained within, and your 2-sentence reflexive reply to a multi-paragraph post.
How could 2 sentences contain a thoughtful response? In this case, they don't. If you read the whole post, your reply will contain 2 yes-or-no answers. If not, it won't. Please read the whole post before reflexively responding again.
You have no proof of that. This is also pretty much ahistorical model of the world. Wishful thinking won't bring peace.
>>How could 2 sentences contain a thoughtful response? In this case, they don't. If you read the whole post, your reply will contain 2 yes-or-no answers. If not, it won't. Please read the whole post before reflexively responding again.
Because you are dodging my question by replying with questions.
This makes no sense. I am stating the consensus of the world. The goal is not to "bring peace", it is to stop the ongoing killing of civilians happening as we speak. Your personal goal of "peace" is lower priority, and we (the world) may be willing to discuss it after the aforementioned higher-priority goal is achieved. But I see no reason to reward terror-bombing of palestinian civilians, especially while the terror-bombing of palestinian civilians is still ongoing. You are free to try to convince the world otherwise, as is israel, but thusfar, you have both failed at the task.
You can disagree, but righteousness is defined by the majority here, and the majority of the world says israel needs to stop its terror bombing campaign against palestinian civilians, regardless of any questions you or israel may have for what comes next. Indeed, whatever your answer to your question (what should israel or palestine do when attacked by the other), "continuing to terror-bomb civilians in palestine" isn't an acceptable answer, as judged by the world. You will have to come up with a new one if you wish to no longer be the villain of this story, according to the world.
>you are dodging my question by replying with questions.
In order to answer your question, I'm first asking clarifying questions which you yourself are dodging. Your dodging of clarifying questions, combined with your history of short, combative posts, illustrates that you aren't interested in clarity, or an answer, or even honest discussion, but rather just to argue. Well, you can continue arguing with yourself, frothing with rage at the fact that the world rejects israel's shallow excuses for terror-bombing palestinian civilians and executing israeli civilian hostages found in gaza. I'll no longer be a party to your bad faith attacks and arguments.
How gracious of you. Where did you (the world) had that meeting where you decided which goals are more important?
>> But I see no reason to reward terror-bombing of palestinian civilians, especially while the terror-bombing of palestinian civilians is still ongoing.
But indiscriminate bombing of Israeli cities is reasonable and kidnapping, raping, mutilating, torturing of Israeli civilians is fine? The moment Israel stops before Hamas is destroyed all that will immediately resume.
>> In order to answer your question, I'm first asking clarifying questions which you yourself are dodging. Your dodging of clarifying questions, combined with your history of short, combative posts, illustrates that you aren't interested in clarity, or an answer, or even honest discussion, but rather just to argue. Well, you can continue arguing with yourself, frothing with rage at the fact that the world rejects israel's shallow excuses for terror-bombing palestinian civilians and executing israeli civilian hostages found in gaza. I'll no longer be a party to your bad faith attacks and arguments.
Nice ad hominem and straw man building.
Without Hamas, all that was in Hebron / E Jerusalem will promptly resume, including apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The latter looks increasingly likely.
> But indiscriminate bombing of Israeli cities
Ceasefire agreements are put in place for a purpose. If pursued earnestly, it can lead to permanent peace (see: Israel-Egypt). Otherwise, if the costs of the on-going war are okay, countries should have at it. Having lived through wars, the costs to me appear rarely justifiable.
Hamas controls Gaza and not the West bank.
Thanks, yeah. Some folks are entitled enough that they feel their opinion outweighs the world. Russia's war on Ukraine is another example of someone thinking their opinion outweighs that of the world. So I appreciate your gratitude and humility in recognizing yours doesn't. The results of the world vote on the immediate (without preconditions) ceasefire is here: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144717
> Nice ad hominem and straw man building.
Aw, and you were making such great progress before it turned into another short, combative post.
Anyways, I was happy to help you find that vote, you're welcome! Have a good one!!
Why are the 1948-1967 borders considered so important? They lasted for 19 years.
Also, in 1967 Gaza was occupied by Egypt. Do people want that again?
1948 borders are irrelevant.
It has certain supremacist beliefs - the Jews are the "chosen people" of God, giving them certain duties and certain privileges. But it's not necessarily a "Jews are better" line of thinking. Though of course many religious Jews may phrase it in those terms.
Worth mentioning that the majority of Israelis are secular, so the religious view on this, whatever it is, is a minority view in Israel.
Israel has killed Hamas leaders who wanted to work towards peace [3]: >> After Israel assassinated Jabari, Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, reported: >> Our decision makers, including the defense minister and perhaps also Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, knew about Jabari’s role in advancing a permanent cease-fire agreement. … Thus the decision to kill Jabari shows that our decision makers decided a cease-fire would be undesirable for Israel at this time, and that attacking Hamas would be preferable.
An Israeli government that was actually interested in peace could halt and reverse the settlements in the West Bank, end the apartheid (e.g. military vs civilian courts for Palestinians, different class of citizenships, travel restrictions, prevention from visting Jerusalem's holy sites, etc.), the blockade of Gaza, etc. Treating Palestinians as humans (and not propping up Hamas) would likely go a long way towards undermining Hamas. Most Palestinians already didn't like Hamas - 70% wanted the PA in July 2023 according to the Washington Institute.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up... [2] https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian... [3] https://theintercept.com/2023/11/17/hillary-clinton-hamas-is...
Has such a thing ever happened in history? I don't think it has, so it seems like fantasy. No one really seems interested in risking their or their children's lives policing some other group of people elsewhere in the world if they don't have some geopolitical interest in it.
Did you consider that massive civilian death could play into Hamas' hand? One of the insurgency techniques, where the action causes overreaction to amplify support ("action-reaction-revolution").
What happens in Palestine (a territory of the state of Israel plus the territories under the occupation) is called insurgency. To end the insurgency you can either withdraw, exterminate the insurgent population and/or convince the population to not support the insurgent.
Insurgency is always a fight for the legitimacy. The problem with this conflict is the fight for legitimacy happens not only between Israel and Palestinian Arabs, but also within these parties. Israel has official stance on supporting two state solution and un-official de-facto single state goal. Palestinians have Hamas, PLO, Islamic Jihad etc.
The biggest blow Israel could deal to Hamas would probably be to do the minimum to contain them, provide the PA with access and means, and let the PA deal with it with guarantees of meaningful concessions if/when the PA succeeds in meeting certain targets (that ought to carefully not mention Hamas, but mention things like demonstrating a functioning justice system and ability to secure the borders). To your point of a "neutral" foreign coalition, if granted access by Israel, the PA would potentially be in a position where it could ask for international assistance and try to frame it as allies coming to the aid of the population rather than an attack on Palestine.
But that would also first take an Israeli government that is serious about peace and negotiating concessions, and frankly the current Israeli government seems as caught up in seeing the continuation of the conflict as essential to their own power as Hamas.
In the meantime there's a real danger this will stoke up more radicalism not just in Gaza but in the West Bank as well.
Why? Poland and France are not within their pre-1945 borders.
Israel was previously within its 1967 borders, in 1967, Arab states declared war on it anyway.
A realistic chance of peace is Arab states realising that they’re not going to be able to kick Jews out of the Jewish homeland.
It's easy to over-react to an attack, and I hope people like you are able to control the reaction. I'm in the US, and it's important to me to remind people that the US destroyed Iraq in response to 9/11 (and Iraq wasn't behind it, regardless of them being an evil government) and a million people died and also we bear eternal shame for kidnapping people and torturing them in black prisons during that terrible time. I was a young adult at that time and I failed to make any impact on US choices. I hope other people do better than I did.
That is not true. I remember Bush’s address: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/new...
I would say that US military doctrine has successfully created the most peaceful era in human history as measured by mortality rate due to conflict, and a fundamental part of that is the willingness to confront adversaries with overwhelming force. The alternative is generations of tribal conflicts. Coming from a family with many war deaths over the past several hundred years, I’m thankful the violence ended with my generation.
This article says 300k civilians died in the immediate wartime, more died in the aftermath. For example, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/20/iraq-broken-...:
With little doubt, the United States broke Iraq. U.S. forces succeeded in the campaign to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein... But what followed turned into a debacle for U.S. grand strategy, and a traumatic nightmare for much of Iraqi society.
The war, driven by the hubris of the Bush administration and a supportive Washington establishment — as well as what has to be described at this point as a vengeful post-9/11 bloodlust that permeated American society — is now widely seen as a generational American mistake. ... According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, many of the 306,000 estimated deaths in the Iraq war were of civilians killed by “direct war related violence” between 2003 and 2019, a span of time that saw Iraq convulsed by waves of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, and its cities ravaged by terrorist attacks and airstrikes.
The consensus now, even among formerly hawkish Republicans, is that the United States should never have invaded Iraq 20 years ago. ...
“Iraq quickly fell prey to chaos, conflict and instability, experienced an uncountable number of deaths and displacements, and the erosion of health, education and basic services,” wrote Iraqi academic Balsam Mustafa. “Behind the statistics, there are untold stories of agony and suffering. The structural and political violence would spill into social and domestic violence, affecting women and children. With every life lost, a whole family is shattered. From day one, the conditions were forming for the emergence of terrorist groups and militias.”
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War
* 9/11 members were known to be in Iraq (we ignored the significant Saudi presence in actuality for the 9/11 attack)
* In the days immediately following 9/11, the Bush administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq.
* The false claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
* "A study coauthored by the Center for Public Integrity found that in the two years after September 11, 2001, the president and top administration officials had made 935 false statements, in an orchestrated public relations campaign to galvanize public opinion for the war, and that the press was largely complicit in its uncritical coverage of the reasons adduced for going to war.[70][71] PBS commentator Bill Moyers had made similar points throughout the lead-up to the Iraq War, and prior to a national press conference on the Iraq War[72] Moyers correctly predicted "at least a dozen times during this press conference he [the President] will invoke 9/11 and al-Qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked America."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/the-netanyahu-...
Of particular note, and to your point:
> Netanyahu is not a conventional ideologue. His opposition to a two-state solution does not derive from any messianic conviction or biblical inspiration. While many of his supporters are religious traditionalists, he is staunchly secular and doesn’t even keep kosher. Instead, his worldview is shaped by deep pessimism. “I’m asked if we will for ever live by the sword – yes,” he told a group of Knesset members in 2015. He had absorbed this view as a child. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a dyspeptic historian of the Spanish Inquisition who died in 2012, at the age of 102. “Jewish history is in large measure a history of holocausts,” Netanyahu Sr once told the New Yorker’s David Remnick. For Netanyahu the son, that catastrophic vision of history has meant that nearly all matters of defence appear refracted through the lens of existential threat. According to such calculus, any Palestinian state would almost certainly devolve into an Islamist terror state threatening Israel’s existence; therefore indefinite Israeli control over the occupied territories is an absolute necessity for Jewish survival.
Making Gaza a separate state won't help. Israel hates them, Egypt hates them even more. Israel will cut off water, comms, and power, the aid will drop substantially, and Gaza will be a very very very poor country with no economy ... And the only jobs will still be terrorism.
So inevitably Gaza would love rockets at Israel ... It's what they are paid to do so by Iran and Qatar.
But Israel won't be dealing with wards or some superintendent role. It will be an act of war and Israel gets to carpet bomb them.
They are intransigent and will always chose violence over any other more reasonable option[1]. And take decades of concerted effort to stamp out. The Muslim Brotherhood still exists despite decades of efforts to suppress it.
[1] The sad thing is the road of violence is where the Palestinians are weakest. And the road of using shaming is where they are strongest.
Of course hamas can surrender. It involves dropping weapons, raising hands, and submitting to the forces who have you out-gunned. That's how surrendering works.
Surrendering and releasing hostages would go a long way towards the peace that so many want.
Hamas does not want peace. It benefits from violent conflict. Let alone the fact that Iran sits there too in the mix
Shirtless men surrendered so others can. Gaza is crumbling so the more shirtless men the better to encourage an end to violence.
Israel should make sure not to disrespect those who surrender if they want more to follow. Maybe incentivise surrender beyond "we will bomb you otherwise". Regarding the shirtless thing, I was surprised to learn Hamas imposed laws ban men in Gaza from swimming topless (wikipedia). Before even getting to military Hamas, the "civil Hamas" has a long list of horrendous attributes.
> 'Hamas does not want peace. It benefits from violent conflict.'
Where's the benefit of dying or losing resources? The benefit of brutally targeting civilians? Unless we really are dealing with lesser humans? I've seen fictional zombies on TV behave with more restraint than jihad terrorists. Zombies would actually be easier to deal with when confined to an area, not yet spread over the world. IDF are undoubtedly fighting terror with terror, exactly like most of us would fighting against zombies.
This is what happens when your religion rewards you for dying in war.
Did you hear that somewhere? It's a troubling position to adopt as it empowers Hamas with a certain immunity and unlimited violence pass. Since when does legitimacy scale with violence? Since never.
Now is not the time to avoid the weeds. Total violence doesn't mean one side is awarded the fruits of legitimacy.
When the child cries: "our house fell on our heads", at some point the opinions why that happened, or opinions what should be done to stop it will be in conflict among Palestinians. In other words, deflation of Hamas legitimacy is an entirely reasonable outcome to expect as more of the world around ordinary civilians crumbles in response to the actions of Hamas.
Extremist factions whether violent like Hamas or more mundane and local like the far right American politicians benefit from making the status quo worse. Every time they prevent positive change they make extremism more appealing. They do not need to advance their stated goals. They just need to get people more into the mindset of viewing the idealist way of doing things as hopeless and making the extremist way the only path. This grants legitimacy.
Point in case, even in war torn regions, support for Hamas is rising among Palestinians.
I'm genuinely curious.
For my family, the downsides of immigration are too great vs the downsides of upper-middle class living in metropolitan Tel Aviv. Israel is the only place where their mother tongue is the dominant local language, where their culture is the dominant local culture, where they have their friends and family and professional networks. Where they're not foreign.
Immigration is a pain in the ass and I'm not surprised most people don't do it.
The problems are also much deeper than just "Netanyahu and Hamas". Not only does Netanyahu keep getting re-elected, these ultra hard-right Religious Zionist people have also gained quite a lot of ground, and these people are utterly bonkers, having expressed views that are nothing short of genocidal (even before the current war). And at the same time Hamas also has fairly wide-spread support among the people of Gaza, and Hamas has also expressed views that are nothing short of genocidal.
In short, it's a cultural problem, not a "Netanyahu and Hamas"-problem. Conflicts like this ends when people get tired of the violence and stop caring about who did what to who, and just want it to stop. This is why the Good Friday Accords in Northern Ireland have held, in spite of some opposition, as well as lingering grievances and even outright hatred, from both sides.
I'm not seeing this willingness here. The last time this was really present was the 90s, a hopeful period in general, and the Oslo accords between Rabin and Arafat seemed to be the start of the end of the conflict. It was not to be, and things didn't end well for either men: one got murdered by one of his own religious nutjobs and the other eventually got side-tracked by his own religious nutjobs, and things have only gotten worse since then.
I'm not hopeful for a resolution any time soon. Solutions for fundamental problems like "Gaza has been an open air prison for 15 years and we need to do something with these people" are barely being asked, and even the question itself is met with hostility by some.
Maybe someone still has a savegame from a few decades ago and we can try again? That seems the most plausible solution.
Unlike say, the current civil war in Burma or Sudan, or the Azeri-Armenian war, basically everyone who clicks on this will have an opinion that’s not, well, academic let’s say.
I agree with you about this:
> everyone who clicks on this will have an opinion that’s not, well, academic let’s say
... but as I've explained elsewhere in this thread, I don't think suppressing the topic outright is a solution either (I mean a solution to the particular constraints of this site, not in general).
So what do we do? We each work in ourselves to find a larger space than just our own opinion. We make room for the other alongside ourselves. If we can do that, we'll be able to comment from a place of openness rather than battle. For those who feel too intensely to do so: that is human—let's just be aware enough to recognize that state in ourselves and refrain from posting as long as we're in that state.
* https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
I am already seeing the antisemitic comments calling Jews colonizers, stealing land from indigenous people for 75 years. The one-liners or single-sentence zingers lack context or, often, truth.
I do appreciate comments from people living in that area -- what their lives were and are before and during this conflict.
I do wish that instead of this charged subject on HN, instead an article discussing the history of this land and people living on it. History of empires, conquests, displacements, wars, attacks.
Etymology of the names and Meaning of terms that are being used by both sides.
* What did Zionism mean in 19th and 20th centuries? What does it mean in 21st century?
* What does Anti-Zionism mean?
* Where does the word Palestine come from?
* What really happened in 1948?
* What happened to Gaza Strip under Egyptian rule from 1948 to 1967?
* What happened to West Bank under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967?
Discussing history of what happened and what did not would be less explosive and more productive use of great minds on HN, in my opinion.
how is that antisemetic? not all jews support israel in the first place and zionism != judaism.
also, they ARE colonizers. they are building luxury homes on land taken from people who were there without any compensation and forced to live in a ghetto.
Basicly zionists did to palestinians what europeans did to jews. Its shocking to me because up till recently I mistakenly expected the jewish people to be more compassionate given their history.
Lastly you don’t know well documented history connecting Jews to that area for millennia with evidence of Jews inhabiting that area before even Mohammed was born. People who belong in the area and who furthermore buy large portions of it are not colonizers by any definition of the word.
a very zionist talking point
> history of British Palestine Mandate, history of Jews buying land in that area and UN offering a partition that Jews accepted while Arabs did not.
british conquered that land yes. that dosen't mean they had the moral authority to give it away to people who weren't from there.
> Lastly you don’t know well documented history connecting Jews to that area for millennia with evidence of Jews inhabiting that area
I don't know how anyone in teh west wouldn't know given that jesus was a Palestinian JEW and abraham the original jew was from iraq.
there have been palestinian jews there the whole time. they coexisted just fine with the other arabs. what hasn't been fine is europeans coming in and driving out the locals because they claim they own the land based on a 3000 year gap. I mean thats freaking ludicrous. by that same logic, descendents of slaves here in america are entitled to a plot of land in africa somwhere. as does every irish and italian immigrant in the united states to their respective home countries.
dibs passed down by imaginary sky daddy in your magic book does not constitute a legitemate chain of custody in any raional society. In any other circumstance, it would be harmless fun but people are literally being genocided over this.
Israel exists and we can't really go back at this point but at the very least we need acknowledge that the apartheid israel is running is a human rights violation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH8JrDGZD2k&ab_channel=Decla...
I suspect that you believe that Jews colonized British Mandate Palestine in 19th and 20th century culminating with the creation of the state of Israel.
I also suspect that you believe that the state of Israel doesn’t have the right to exist and need to cease its existance
they took land that didn't belong to them by gunpoint and forced the locals to relocate. Thats Is TEXTBOOK colonization. Its bad enough that it happened in teh past. the fact that they are CONTINUING to do it in the west bank just cements my opinion about that.
> I suspect that you believe that Jews colonized British Mandate Palestine in 19th and 20th century culminating with the creation of the state of Israel
yes becuse nothing is more important the opions of 19tha nd 20th century white populated countries when it comes to the affairs of people in their coloies
> I also suspect that you believe that the state of Israel doesn’t have the right to exist and need to cease its existance
I used to believe in a 2 state solution. maybe it could still work. but after seeing what zionists have been doing to palestinians for the last 50 years (and esspecially the last 3 months) I think its best if all the european jews in israel went back to their respective countries. more of us out here are feeling that way after seeing just how straight up EVIL the IDF is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybyUTIU-qo&ab_channel=DWDoc... (3 years aho)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMYEHhCkedo&ab_channel=TheGu...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LumgWaM72nU&ab_channel=Mondo...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOptDiwyrU&ab_channel=SkyNe...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFtECuh15Rw&ab_channel=AlJaz...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2a80ZQXfFs&ab_channel=TRTWo...)
can you explain to me why the IDF doesn't enforce teh UN rules equally and keep settlers out of the west bank whihch the UN rules belongs to Palestinians?
can you expalin why children as young as 10 years old are held in military prisons and military courts with no accesss to due process and sentanced to as much as a decade for throwing a rock?
can you explain why Israelis are filing in wells with concrete?
can you explain why why the IDF needed to execute women and children sheltering from the seige in a school? they were shot close to point blank range
I suspect that you are strongly biased. but the zionist arguemnt falls apart pretty quickly by anyone actually doing any reserach with an unbiasted view.
it really falls down to "god promised it to us" "british people promised it to us" "it was ours 3000 years ago"
NONE of thses arguments would be valid for ANY other people. so why are zionists so special in this regard? what makes you so special that you can commit HEINOUS human rights violations on MY TAX dollars?
Again, I used to be supportive of a 2 stage solution but after these last two months, yes, I'm strongly on the side of the palestinians at thsi point. for the same rason I would have sided with jews during the holocaust and black africans during teh apartheid.
to put it susccinctly
I'd rather be a black man in america than a uighur in china but Id rather be a uighur in china than a palestinian in gaza.
you wanna show that israel is a beacon of democracy in the middle east? how about demonstrating first that its not an authoritarian ethnostate with good PR.
a good start would be NOT jailing israeli citizens for speaking out against the genocide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5SMzQzdnZw&ab_channel=Democ...)
notice I have not called for violence. I'm merely asserting that israel is running an apratheid state and committing human rights violations. I have provided links to back up my assertions.
evil prevails when good men do nothing and I'll burn my karma to make sure people know whats going on.
^^^^^^^^^^^ > I too disagree with the current West Bank settlement policies, but I suspect that your calling Jews COLONIZERS is not based on this issue. they took land that didn't belong to them by gunpoint and forced the locals to relocate. Thats Is TEXTBOOK colonization. Its bad enough that it happened in teh past. the fact that they are CONTINUING to do it in the west bank just cements my opinion about that.
> I suspect that you believe that Jews colonized British Mandate Palestine in 19th and 20th century culminating with the creation of the state of Israel
yes becuse nothing is more important the opions of 19tha nd 20th century white populated countries when it comes to the affairs of people in their coloies
> I also suspect that you believe that the state of Israel doesn’t have the right to exist and need to cease its existance
I used to believe in a 2 state solution. maybe it could still work. but after seeing what zionists have been doing to palestinians for the last 50 years (and esspecially the last 3 months) I think its best if all the european jews in israel went back to their respective countries. more of us out here are feeling that way after seeing just how straight up EVIL the IDF is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybyUTIU-qo&ab_channel=DWDoc... (3 years aho)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMYEHhCkedo&ab_channel=TheGu...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LumgWaM72nU&ab_channel=Mondo...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOptDiwyrU&ab_channel=SkyNe...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFtECuh15Rw&ab_channel=AlJaz...)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2a80ZQXfFs&ab_channel=TRTWo...)
can you explain to me why the IDF doesn't enforce teh UN rules equally and keep settlers out of the west bank whihch the UN rules belongs to Palestinians?
can you expalin why children as young as 10 years old are held in military prisons and military courts with no accesss to due process and sentanced to as much as a decade for throwing a rock?
can you explain why Israelis are filing in wells with concrete?
can you explain why why the IDF needed to execute women and children sheltering from the seige in a school? they were shot close to point blank range
I suspect that you are strongly biased. but the zionist arguemnt falls apart pretty quickly by anyone actually doing any reserach with an unbiasted view.
it really falls down to "god promised it to us" "british people promised it to us" "it was ours 3000 years ago"
NONE of thses arguments would be valid for ANY other people. so why are zionists so special in this regard? what makes you so special that you can commit HEINOUS human rights violations on MY TAX dollars?
Again, I used to be supportive of a 2 stage solution but after these last two months, yes, I'm strongly on the side of the palestinians at thsi point. for the same rason I would have sided with jews during the holocaust and black africans during teh apartheid.
to put it susccinctly
I'd rather be a black man in america than a uighur in china but Id rather be a uighur in china than a palestinian in gaza.
you wanna show that israel is a beacon of democracy in the middle east? how about demonstrating first that its not an authoritarian ethnostate with good PR.
a good start would be NOT jailing israeli citizens for speaking out against the genocide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5SMzQzdnZw&ab_channel=Democ...)
Let’s try to have a discussion while focusing on one subject at a time.
One subject that stands out is you calling Jews colonizers.
It’s indisputable that the Jewish history in the area of modern day Israel goes back thousands of years.
These areas were in fact colonized by Romans, then Ottomans, then by the British. Many Jews were expelled during these colonizations.
The act of migration of Jews back to what is present day Israel in 1948 was NOT colonization but a return of indigenous people to their homeland.
Words have meanings. Colonization means something. Jews return to Israel was not it. Apartheid means something. Israeli Arabs enjoy the same rights as non-Arab Israelis, they serve in the government, Supreme Court and even the IDF if they choose to. Israel is not an apartheid state because it does not segregate its citizens by race/ethnicity.
> yes becuse nothing is more important the opions of 19tha nd 20th century white populated countries when it comes to the affairs of people in their coloies
In spite of sounding fairly racist, you are historically correct - opinions of white populated countries - Britain and France - as well as the League of Nations - were in fact important because in 1920s they helped sketch the borders of future Arab nation-states we such as Kingdom of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, etc and ultimately led to emergence of Arab nationalism that shaped these Middle East countries.
If you invalidate UN partition of British Mandate Palestine by saying “oh British people promised to us”, then you will have to invalidate most of Arab Nation states in the Arabian Peninsula. You also invalidate the sovereignty of both India and Pakistan.
> I think it’s best if all the european jews in israel went back to their respective countries.
What about the Mizrahi Israelis of middle eastern & North African origin? They constitute close to 70% of Israeli Jews.
What about non-Mizrahi Jews who were born in Israel and who have no cultural or ethnic connections to European countries you speak of.
What do you propose be done to them.
whats barely coherent about this? Ive provided context as well as links to reputable sources (journalists on the ground documenting whats goig on) backing them up yet you casually dismiss them like I'm posting videos to flat earther vids. its doesn't take much for an unbiased observer to realize that what zionists are doing is not right. Please examine your own biases and at least watch them.
>The act of migration of Jews back to what is present day Israel in 1948 was NOT colonization but a return of indigenous people to their homeland.
and what of the people living there? was it really necessary to force them to relocate "trail of tears" style? we are taught in history books that it wa sa tradjedy on native american peoples. how is this any different?
>These areas were in fact colonized by Romans, then Ottomans, then by the British. Many Jews were expelled during these colonizations.
and they are welcome back there if their intention is to peacefully coexist. the issue is that there is an occupation. the rights of the palestinians are suppressed in order to maintain a far right ethnostate.
> Israeli Arabs enjoy the same rights as non-Arab Israelis,
and palestinians in the west bank are subject to something very akin to apartheid. Please tell me why it was necessary to have hundres of children as young as 10 years old doing prison time in israeli miliary courts? how does that not immediately light up a red flag in the back of your mind that something isn't right?
> If you invalidate UN partition of British Mandate Palestine by saying “oh British people promised to us”, then you will have to invalidate most of Arab Nation states in the Arabian Peninsula. You also invalidate the sovereignty of both India and Pakistan.
india and pakistan agreed to that rift. the division between muslims and hindus was largely manufactured by the british as part of their means of keeping colonies under their control. I have plenty of criticisms about modhi and his far right hindu nationalist mindset bit thats goign off topic.
> What about the Mizrahi Israelis of middle eastern & North African origin? They constitute close to 70% of Israeli Jews.
Im not opposed to european jews living in the region. I'm opposed to the occupation and subjugation of the palestinian people. let them return to live in israel and grant ALL of them citizenship and right to due process that is afforded to israeli citizens. make the israeli government a place where both paletinians AND israelis can pursue justice and you might find peace is within reach.
Hamas is a terrorist organization. they are perfectly fine killing civilians to achieve their goal. if we establish that the willingness to harm civilians in pursuit of miltary advantage is the mark of a terrorist, please tell me how the IDF is any different here? I've already sent you several youtube links from journalistic sources highlighting the human rights atrocities of the IDF as well as the human rights violations of israeli settlers in the west bank against palestinians. most recent of which being a mass killing in a school involving literal children. People turn to terrorism when there are no avenues to justice.
This is exactly what netinyahu wants. force palestinians to need hamas so that he can use (fear of ) hamas to perpeuate his far right regime. peace could be achieved fairly easily if it was an option the far right of israel wanted. but that would mean accepting paletsinans with open arms and making them first class citizens alongside jews in israel. But that gets in the way of his aspirations for an ethnostate.
You deserve a flag for this behaviour alone.
Does HN have a policy against epistemic soundness in claims? Because if there is a method that is maximally useful for these sorts of issues, it is disciplined epistemology. Yet, I know of no explicit policy on it, but I have been subjected to scolding for practicing it, suggesting there is an implicit policy, at least to some degree (perhaps only on some topics, who knows). Or, an error has been made....which once again is an epistemological matter.
If people refuse to even try to utilize the tools that exist, and discussion of that phenomenon is disallowed, it may not be optimal game play....and sometimes, suboptimal gameplay results in large quantities of death. Is curiosity about that a good thing?
(And yes, I do realize that the culture we've been raised in has taught us that statements like mine "are" necessarily "in bad faith", though mine is not actually.)
This, for starters:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-epistemic/
You know that word "is" you use now and then? That word is fundamentally based in epistemology.
> and sometimes, suboptimal gameplay results in large quantities of death. Is curiosity about that a good thing?
Do you understand that part?
I will add some clarity: by "suboptimal gameplay", I am referring to the individual and collective behaviour of human beings, as it relates to causality (the consequences of our behaviour).
I am basically asking what HN's stance is on being curious about "large" quantities of (at least plausibly) unnecessary human death.
Are you asking about how one can possibly be "curious" in the face of a catastrophe like this, and what that even means? I think that's a legit question. If curiosity means a detached-technical attitude, that is not an appropriate response to this topic and could in some forms even be monstrous. But that's not what I mean here. What I do mean, I tried to describe at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616823 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38616662. It has to do with being open to others.
I am asking: can you be curious about whether it may have be possible for these (and future) deaths to be avoided, had some humans acted differently than they had?
I suspect this may seem like a very strange question, and I propose that that is an artifact of the problem.
> If curiosity means a detached-technical attitude, that is not an appropriate response to this topic...
Here you are representing a subjective belief as knowledge, on a matter where people's lives are at stake. Can you be curious about whether this approach as a moderator on a website frequented by some of the most powerful minds on the planet may be preventing lives from being saved, or whether it is part of the underlying causality of why these powerful minds can't keep it together when discussing topics like this (which may also contribute to the causality underlying deaths)?
> Can you be curious about whether this approach as a moderator on a website frequented by some of the most powerful minds on the planet may be preventing lives from being saved?
This sounds to me, and maybe I'm wrong, like you have some sort of pre-formed opinion about what Dang et al are doing, but are choosing to cast it in the lens of "can you be curious" as a way of avoiding just directly saying what you think.
I certainly do. And, it is worth noting that while all beliefs are opinions, not all are merely opinion.
Is your read on me better than mine on you? How much experience do you have in the domain?
> but are choosing to cast it in the lens of "can you be curious" as a way of avoiding just directly saying what you think.
My strategy is to use deliberately unusual language in order to break people out of System 1 / LLM / Colloquial mode.
Clearly it is not working, have you any advice for me now that we've at least somewhat, perhaps, broken the 4th wall?
Reminder: thousands have died already, more will (presumably) in the short run, and MANY more in the long run. I appreciate this may not be a pleasant experience, but the stakes are not exactly low.
On HN, we go by article quality rather than site quality. This has been the case for many years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so....
I attempted to give a detailed explanation of how that relates to the current thread in these comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38620928
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38618471
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617464
If you read those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I can take a crack at it.
What makes this one different? When I see a headline like this, I usually assume I managed to see it before you did, and if I refresh the page that it will probably disappear. So again, and without accusation, what's different?
Bad things happen all over the world, nearly constantly or at least it seems to a cynic like myself. Some of those bad things seem... if not fixable, then at least not intractable. Those stories don't seem welcome here though. Surely the situation in Israel and Palestine is as intractable as any, and so much more than most.
The answer to your question goes like this: (1) some stories with political overlap are on topic (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... (2) we try to be careful about which those are, so the site doesn't go down in flames; (3) I think it follows from HN's core principle (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...) that we have to allow at least some discussion of this topic—to suppress it altogether would contradict the intended spirit of HN; and (4) I've explained (or tried to) the sense in which this particular story can be on topic for HN, in my other comments in this thread.
If you or anyone reads that material and still have a question that isn't answered there, I can take a crack at it. Just please understand that the answer may or may not be satisfying, because even if we agree on the principles, different people interpret and draw the lines differently. The important thing for HN moderation is the principles, though, not the individual calls.
Basically everything in how we run HN is an attempt to optimize for the core principle: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... I know it's not at all obvious how this topic can be within that spirit, but it's also not obvious how avoiding the topic can be within that spirit, so it feels to me like we have to try. I'm trying to support that in this thread a lot more actively than I usually do. (Btw, this has the side effect of paying much less attention to what else is on HN's front page, or happening in comments elsewhere. Usually I make the opposite tradeoff.)
I understand where you are coming from. In my experience, the reflective response is often a steel manning of one's own position. This often involves framing, as in using phrases that are agreeable in another context into the author's position. The error I see is both sides of the argument constraining the scope of their discourse to only use information that supports their position. Lies by omission & more often than not, lying to oneself first.
In my experience, having tools to expand the contextual scope is vital, if not the definition, to supporting intellectual curiosity. That's where we seem to disagree on flagging & even downvoting. I think being able to somehow deconstruct comments to extract the insightful (& indicative) as signal over the noise in the comment would also be useful. It's open ended on how that would be done but it's worth exploring IMO.
I think tools that improve expression, understanding, & evaluation of context are critical to improving cohesion across humanity. I am busy writing open source libraries with the intent of creating apps to support contextual expression & understanding. I hope others create & collaborate in building these sorts of tools (tech, social, spiritual, etc) because it may be one of the most important advances for healing our many divides.
---
> That's where we seem to disagree on flagging & even downvoting.
I think the author's intent of expression is often not heard with the same context. So the meaning of what was spoken & what was heard is different. Often one applies their judgements to what was heard while not grasping the context of what was spoken.
Have you done any analysis on who downvotes/flags, on what they downvote/flag, & how often?
It seems to me such important happenings demand curiosity from rational adults, and I'm struggling to understand why an otherwise-rational community would suddenly disagree... Anyway I appreciate your efforts in this thread and everywhere else on the site.
Also, it's amusing to me that, more often than not, discussions about this topic are derailed by discussion about whether it's possible to discuss the original topic in good faith, rather than any sort of blatant ignorance about the actual topic. It's very meta.
[0] I would recommend this one, although I haven't yet made it very far (as it's very long): https://iupress.org/9780253220707/a-history-of-the-israeli-p...
Maybe the only thing worse than trying is not trying.
> Maybe the only thing worse than trying is not trying.
I and others in this thread have been trying to say that from experience, any discussion (unless maybe it's between trusted friends in a face-to-face interaction) about this topic turns into an absolute shitshow sooner or later. I'll admit that this isn't the worst I've seen on the internet, but scroll down far enough, and you'll find enough people engaging in basically flamewars.
"Hearing each other" is all well and good when we're talking about technology, where lots of people on HN are either very knowledgeable about a subject or can at least share their personal experiences. For a topic such as this, I don't think that the HN audience can give any particular insight. Nor do I think that this can be gleaned by individual news articles. The history of this conflict is incredibly complex and anyone who wades into inevitably discovers how little they know about it. That book I mentioned has more than 800 pages and it stops somewhere in the early 2000s, I believe (indeed, the first edition came out on a hopeful note in light of the Oslo accords).
I did my best to moderate this thread, to the point of overload, and yes there was a lot of flamewar and guidelines-breakage that I simply couldn't get to.
IMO what we need to do is find at least a drop of (let's call it) heart in ourselves not only for the ones we identify with, but also for the ones we don't identify with. That's how we can start being human about this. If even a tiny amount of that is possible, and of course it is, then we owe it to ourselves to try.
I think neither of these is true. a) is IMHO false unless you care to a similar extent about all the other atrocities happening even as we speak - most of which elicit a response of "oh that's sad but what will you do". The reason why people care about this conflict (myself included) is because it has become a proxy conflict that is really about other things.
b) is IMHO false because the real action one should take if one cares about this is first and foremost contact anyone you know who is affected by this conflict - even if indirectly, say, by antisemitism or islamophobia - ask them how they're doing and express your support (not necessarily for their positions but for their plight).
I really don't understand what good it does anybody to engage in debate about a topic that is so politically charged and where almost everyone has only half-knowledge (or less).
That experience is one reason why I'm taking a different approach in the current thread. We're trying to learn over time how to support some discussion (but not too much) of these difficult topics, while remaining within the intended spirit of the site.
- This submission is being kept up out of personal agenda (in which case, fair, we can vote with out feet and voices on other platforms)
- This submission is being kept up out of genuine belief. That would constitute an adjective used to describe a person who inadvertently helps their enemies (which Iranian proxies are).
On another note, the article contents - most of it is just poor conditions and rough treatment, which is something that happens to you if you rape and massacre civilians. If you want to know what is actual torture, look up what happens in russia-occupied regions of Ukraine. That's torture, and it happens on a scale far surpassing anything that happened or can happen on such a small piece of land as Gaza strip.
Despite the inevitable low-quality or even overly-biased comments, I find the comments from both sides of the discussion to be generally informative and thoughtful. Certainly more-so than in any other online context that I'm aware of. I come here to learn and reading opinions that I haven't considered before is essentially how that works (especially when those opinions are well founded and backed up with sources).
In short, I find HN to be a relatively knowledgeable and thoughtful community and I appreciate the opportunity to hear this community's thoughts on what is a very important and complex topic.
Can you walk me through how the below commentary is adding value to the HN community? What % of participants will walk away from this conversation with a positive perspective of their peers?
A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶̶g̶l̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶l̶y̶̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶i̶r̶c̶u̶m̶v̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶s̶ ̶r̶u̶l̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶h̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶i̶a̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶P̶G̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶s̶u̶e̶.̶
Update: Actually, I went back and took a closer look at the couple examples I thought supported my argument that PG had some kind of bias on the issue. On second glance, I don't feel like I can honestly claim that he does. Perhaps he does, but I don't have any evidence on hand to support it. I don't want to be adding to the confusion here so I'm going to have to walk back that claim. However, I still don't feel like this topic really belongs on HN. It's a tragedy all around and very important on the world stage. But it seems like there are too many groups that have an interest in steering the conversation one way or another for reasons that have nothing to do with the rights of the victims.
I'd just like to add that this highlights an issue that comes up again and again in highly charged topics: impressions so easily overshadow facts and many people put a lot of effort into propagating impressions to the point that they become accepted and commented on as if they are facts.
Ironically (given your original comment), you are exactly the type of person whose thoughts on this topic I would like to hear and the presence of people like you is why I do appreciate that some allowance for this topic has been made. That said, I know that it is a balancing act and I wouldn't like HN to become more tilted toward general politics.
All of this, I'd be ok with saying may be coming from an entirely sympathetic perspective and trying to find a way back to peace...but where is the sympathy for the other side? There is certainly much to criticize when it comes to the actions of the israeli government, but where is the sympathy for its people? Where are the calls to return the israeli hostages? Where are the tweets denouncing Hamas for the murder and rape of civilians? Non-existant. This was a man I had deeply respected. I bought all his books, read all of his articles, been to startup school multiple times to hear him talk, but this incredibly unfair bias made me lose SO much respect for him. I really want to be wrong about this and would welcome another perspective, but at this point I've literally gone through all his tweets back to Oct 7 and there isnt a single one sympathetic to the israeli people. Please prove me wrong.
Oct 7 isn’t when history started. Just a few days earlier, Israeli people were storming a mosque in Jerusalem. Seventy five years earlier, they were ethnically cleansing Palestine.
If you’d like to be biased, at least be open about it.
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for the history of "HN is getting too political" perceptions.
As many people have pointed out, the article comes from a heavily biased source. Saying that the article itself is interesting, regardless of the source, not only appears to overlook the quality of the article's content, but it also glosses over the harm that referring to biased sources does to the conversation. It seems like way oversimplifying the way that fraught conversations like this tend to go to just claim that the article itself should stand on its own. And, again, it could easily be argued that this article, in fact, doesn't stand on its own.
Also, in this moment, referring me to a list of past instances of people claiming that "HN is getting too political" feels pretty dismissive. I don't doubt that people have claimed that in the past, but that's not some sort of balm that makes me feel any less justified in claiming it now.
I definitely feel Palestinians have legitimate grievances but on the other hand I fear people's natural compassion being used to prolong a war rather than end it.
1. Try to offer smart people an insight into my thinking on this topic, given that I usually have insights they lack.
2. Try to seriously consider other viewpoints to help me better think through my own view of the current war.
I don't really like that an Al Jazeera story is the "prompt" for this, since I think that's a heavily biased source that we may as well ignore, but I'm mostly here for the comments anyway.
I don't quite understand the many people here who think it's such a problem to allow this thread. If you don't want to argue about this topic or be exposed to it - you can always just leave this thread alone! Nothing is forcing you to take part in it.
You can flag rule-breaking comments and in egregious cases, email us at [email protected]. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
@dang is there a way to chat with you privately via DM regarding this?
I understand your intentions are good in allowing discussions here around the topic. However, after reading all comments in the past hour+ I disagree.
One thing that stands out to me is the timing of this post (late in the Middle East), so initial discussion will happen but mostly people outside of the area of conflict.
The poster of this article posted replies in favor of one of the sides so that aren't neutral. As stated before, and I read your replies, the site is not neutral as well (even if the article is 100% accurate).
As someone else posted, people discussing an article on tech, software, engineering, science (hackery things) won't have the same reaction as a topic such as this. And the dangers in this topic are potentially someone believing, advocating and maybe even acting out in violence based on what they read here.
Instead of a news article, why not a text post with links to multiple articles, from several sources, with all "sides" represented.
To end this, I usually come to HN to escape from the horrors and constant negativity of traditional news. I expect hackery topics as the name suggests. Today I was disappointed.
Thanks for everything you've done for HN, please read this and if you'd like to chat I'd love to.
I completely share your sentiment, but I don't believe HN ever offered that. I wasn't here for long but I often see posts about current events or uncomfortable subjects (cancer is one of mine for example), although they still represent a small minority.
I can always be contacted at [email protected]. I don't know if that counts as private DM or not!
I tried asking people here but they didn't come up with an answer except to try to ask you.
I was rate limited for several months until in conversation with dang about an entirely different matter I mentioned that I'd reply in more detail but for the matter of being rate limited.
I guess that triggered a manual look at my comment history and I was upgraded to "mostly harmless".
I don't expect that to always work as not every reply to comments will get read.
I'd be happy to take a look for you but it's impossible to keep track of this from the comments.
In the absence of removing the thread, I feel morally obliged to represent the other side. According to a recent survey in the West Bank around 80% of all Palestinians in the West Bank support the October 7 attacks.[1] This may explain why the IDF is not always friendly towards Gaza prisoners and by default assumes they're Hamas members or sympathizers.
[1] https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...
That's not the complaint, though, me and many others are complaining that flagging that particular story seems to have been overridden manually, since it's almost certain that the story has been flagged very often. I surely have flagged it because of the above guideline, and many similar stories have been flagged and removed in the past. Luckily. HN is not the right medium for discussions of such topics. It's sad that Dang chose the most flamebait topic possible for an already dubious experiment.
The experience of this thread was brutal, and of course it would have been so much easier to avoid it, but I don't think avoidance serves HN's purpose in the long run.
Anyhow, I appreciate your contributions to HN and I hope the positive will outweigh the negative in the long run.
If you insist on highly controversial topics, you should at least provide ways for users to block other HN users and all of their submissions in a symmetric way (if X blocks Y, X and Y cannot see each others posts). To give you a sense of perspective, I discussed the current Israel/Palestine situation on Reddit, and had to (i) mute more than a dozen subreddits, (ii) block about a hundred users, and (iii) report half a dozen users. I received private messages by people I haven't even discussed with that literally threatened my family with rape and death. Of course, these accounts were removed, but the danger of leaking one's real identity and corresponding real-world consequences are still high on pseudonymous sites. Not everybody on HN is a tech billionaire who can afford private bodyguards.
For many people, me included, it is not a good solution either to just have an ability to hide a thread without voicing any opposition to the partly horrendous discussions in it. Although I want to leave Academia (and probably will), I'm currently working as a philosopher on moral decision-making and related topics in meta-ethics, and that means that I feel obliged to sometimes participate in such threads, if they exist. But my take is that, if possible, they should be avoided. There is no lack of social media where people can discuss politics and ongoing wars.
As you can imagine, there are many approaches to normative ethics, international law, and the ethics of the rules of war. I'm by no means an expert in any of them and also do not believe that moral philosophers have authority regarding specific normative judgments. When I said I feel obliged to say something about the topic, I was more or less talking about a personal feeling of responsibility rather than claiming any moral authority. What I can recommend is to not be a consequentialist in moral evaluations of specific decisions, though consequentialist considerations are important in policy-making when statistical data is available. Motives and intentions matter a lot, and their roles are also codified in international law.
My personal take on the subject is that the military intervention in Gaza so far is morally justified. Deaths per bombings are low (not high, as some people claim) if you take victim numbers provided by Hamas and numbers about target bombings by IDF. Civilian:combatant casualty ratio is alleged to be around 2:1, which is also low for urban combat. But the main reasons why I believe it is justified are that there is no other alternative to put Hamas out of power, or at least substantially reduce the power of Al Qassam brigades, no past actions of Israel could in any morally relevant sense justify the Hamas terror attacks, I see no compelling evidence that the IDF or Israeli government wants to commit genocide (which, by definition, requires intention), Hamas endorse terrorism and self-portray as jihadists, there is an ongoing hostage crisis, Hamas has often attacked Israel in the past, and Israel has a right to prevent future attacks. Consequentialist counting of the number of victims plays only a minor role and, as far as I know, is also not very relevant from a legal point of view. Commensurability in the rules of war is relative to the military goals, and must be judged on a case by case basis. I've read and agree with how this is defined in the Geneva Conventions.
Neither that Palestinians are oppressed (or feel that way) nor whether some land belongs to them or not plays any substantial role in my personal moral assessment because these do not justify terrorism and hostage-taking.
Anyway, that's just my personal take on it. Sorry I'm unable to give you any good reading recommendation.
HN's position on this (i.e., re political content on the site) has been stable for years now, hasn't destroyed HN yet, and IMO probably won't. Certainly we'll do all we can to avoid that. If you or anyone wants to know how we think about it, there are lots of past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... Most questions that people have about HN+politics are answered there; if a question isn't answered there, I'd like to know what it is. A couple of starting points might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 (Nov 2019) or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902490 (April 2020).
I go back and forth on the killfile idea but my gut feeling is that it's not in HN's interest. For better or worse, it's in HN's DNA that we're all in one big room together. The site isn't sharded into silos the way others are. Here's a thing I wrote about that a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
Decisions like this—e.g. about to what degree to allow political content, or whether to introduce block lists / killfiles—are risky because it's easy to see what's bad about the status quo (e.g. political flamewars are awful, having to see awful comments is awful), but much harder to see what's good about it and what one would lose by dropping that.
You're right about the downside of allowing a thread like this. It's painful and awful (to me too). And you're right that there are other places for people to talk about this. But what does it do to us as a community if we don't touch it at all? That's the question I'm sitting with. HN can't be the community it ought to be if all we do is disconnect from painful and divisive things; we become a lesser version of ourselves if we do that. (I wrote a bit more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38658881.)
That does not mean we're going to let HN burn up with flamewars about this topic or any other. It needs to be carefully regulated (in the sense of calibrating, not ruling over), and we'll do our best. For example that's why I didn't turn off the flags on a different post last night (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38657527).
If you want to know how we think about this, there are lots of past explanations at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... If you look at some of those and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a look.
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38617796 in this thread, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 for the history of "HN is getting too political" perceptions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_al-Jalaa_Buildi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Simone_Camilli_and_A...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issam_Abdallah
[4] https://cpj.org/reports/2023/05/deadly-pattern-20-journalist...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_dur...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...
The real problem with political threads like this on HN is that HN has no way of muting individual persons. This is not good for anyone. Normally, I'd just mute your account and go on, that's how I deal with bad faith arguers on Reddit and it works great. Alas, HN doesn't have this possibility, so they really need to avoid flamebait topics like this one.
Anyway, if I find any illegal terrorist propaganda or calls to genocide in any of those threads, I know where to report it. At least German authorities react rather fast, and, if necessary, block all of HN. The rest of the EU has similar mechanisms.
(Ideally after you finish dealing with all the irate email)
Some of us are probably wondering if we will be seeing more of these "experiments" into 2024. If this is going to be the case, I'll seclude myself in some darker, more obscure corner. Maybe I'll go back to 4chan. Ambiguous moderation is much more onerous to me than no moderation.
Instead, ask first whether you can find a place of compassion in yourself before commenting. If you can't, that's understandable, but then please don't post. By compassion I mean something more spacious than angry identification.
I'm not saying that this is the purpose of HN (we're not aiming quite that high) but I do think it's the only way to touch a topic like this without destroying that purpose, which is thoughtful, curious conversation. It may be nearly impossible to relate to such a topic from such a place, but nearly != entirely, and it's part of HN's mandate to try. Consider this an experiment, or perhaps an advanced exercise, in community.