The vast majority of people across the world is in favour of the end of bombing and segregation, and against the regime that perpetuate it, if only because of empathy alone. And HN does indeed reflects this to some extent.
What the OP was alluding to when he said that pro palestinian view points were silenced is the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news. To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
You might not be aware of it, if really you don't read anything beyond tech news, and I'm not going to blame you for that.
Should you not feel the need to evidence this?
> the more or less dissimulated support for the war and systematically misleading depiction of the situation in the mainstream news.
First, I don't see why I should conclude that that's what the comment was about. The part I quoted was:
> I, for one, am thankful this hasn't been taken down like any article remotely critical of Israel.
I understood this to mean "taken down from HN".
But I see nothing of the sort in mainstream news, either. The news coverage available to me is full of stories like the submission, and says rather little that would tend to justify Israel. If I search, for example, for coverage in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) of the conflict, I find plenty of independent sources claiming that there is some kind of whitewashing going on (and none of the people making these claims seem to face any negative repercussions for doing so — as they shouldn't, since Canada is also pretty good on the freedom of speech thing), but then I look at the actual CBC articles I find and they're just... not as described.
The general sense I get is that people who characterize this as a genocide are upset that other people fail to accept this characterization by fiat.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
Who has been imprisoned for merely expressing the view that this is a genocide, as opposed to being imprisoned for the usual disorderly, anti-social actions that typically get protesters (in general, whatever they're protesting for) imprisoned?
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/03/most-peop...
Notice that the question asked by this poll was a bit stronger than my claim (I believe one is more likelly to be in favor of the end of bombing than against Israel because advocating for peace is less damaging for one's reputation than voicing a more political stance, whatever that is).
Definitely doesn’t reflect what I’ve seen in the mainstream media. Almost everyday at the top of the news are stories taken almost verbatim from Hamas’s Health Ministry or other arms. The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
The problem is the boys brother who is healthy and well fed was cropped or left out. The boy has muscular dystrophy. None of that was mentioned in most of the coverage.
Here’s the photo with the boys brother that I’ve only seen posted on X or Instagram posted by regular users:
https://x.com/razzajj/status/1948819116217008340
The war has made it hard to get treatment for him, but that’s not listed in most of the articles.
It’s a clear yellow journalism piece. Of course those MSM outlets also make lots of advertisement money by posting such rage bait stories.
That’s what most people, and even politicians, end up seeing and then believing.
> To say nothing about the exceedingly harsh criminalization of dissent.
From what I’ve read a few violent protesters were arrested. Some student visas were revoked, etc. I’ve seen pro-Palestinian protests in person in the US and the UK going about quite freely.
Do any of these stories compare to the mainstream media's systematic lies about 40 beheaded babies? Or babies burned in ovens? Or systematic rape? Did the US President launder any of those lies long after they were debunked?
Were the stories about premie babies left to rot at Al Nasr true? Were the stories about Hind Rajab true? Were the stories about civilians being used as target practice while they try to get aid true? Were the stories about the IDF mass murdering a convoy of emergency vehicles and burying them in a shallow unmarked grave true?
Do Hamas have people in the BBC censoring stories they don't like? Did the NYT run huge stories by Hamas "journalists" with no experience and no evidence?
> Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
You don't refute that the boy is starving. He's far from the only one. Gaza is in stage 5 of famine; the effect of which will be felt for generations - and you think a photo of a "well fed" (and horrifically traumatized for life) boy proves that they're actually fine??
Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
How many people have been murdered while trying to get aid in the past week? Are those stories lies too, even though they come from whistleblowers who were there; even though there's video of some of the incidents?
Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
My refutation was implicit in the fact that the boy's condition appears to be genetic and that his brother appears healthy and well fed. His mother also appears not to be starving either.
> Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
I didn't link to those comments nor do I condone them. There's plenty of vile pro-Palestinian comments on X and elsewhere as well.
You also don't deny the veracity of the photo or the full story.
There is real starvation occurring in Gaza, but the IDF has also started scaling up aid and food including announcing safe corridors for UN aid delivery which I believe the IDF should've done sooner.
> Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
You've convinced yourself it's a holocaust, despite the scales being 2 orders of magnitudes different in number and completely different in actions and intentions. Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more. That's 2 out of every 3 Jewish people in Europe at the time.
Your distortions and semi-irrational accusations don't change the actual realities which are hard enough to estimate.
Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars. Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza, while Mosul was 4.7-6.1:1. That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone. Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Yet it's not sensational or in the headlines everyday, so who cares right?
I'm not the only one who says it.
It's a holocaust. You are promoting holocaust denial.
Look at the footage of Rafah: desolation as far as the drone can see. Even by the end of Biden's term, the majority of civilian buildings had been destroyed across the strip. 6 Hiroshimas, on a 12x12 mile square populated with over a million children.
> Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more.
Christians, homosexuals, and disabled people have all been slaughtered by Israel as well - and hostages too. So what's your point?
> Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars.
You're missing the key piece of factual information there: IDF estimates. Other estimates put the ratio of civilian deaths an order of magnitude higher, and if there's any evidence whatsoever for IDF's claims of Hamas fighters killed I don't know anyone who's ever seen it. Feel free to present some if you have it.
> Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza
What sources are these? The IDF, Netanyahu, and Ben Gvir?
You're lying.
> That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
Still no evidence for that claim whatsoever. Plenty of evidence of Israel doing it though - it's openly admitted, including in your own linked article.
> There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone.
Is Sudan surrounded by aid trucks sitting idle? And are both connected to Western interference?
> Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Somolia? ... Even if we ignore the problems with your figures (using IDF estimates, ignoring the fact Sudan is 25 times more populated than Gaza, longer time period, etc) - there are still at least three major problems:
One, Western powers are directly enabling, funding and arming Israel's genocide, which means we are complicit and have more of a responsibility to discuss and bring an end the situation as soon as possible.
Two, Western interference (esp the US and Israel) with Sudan, Yemen and Somalia is also responsible for no small part of their current problems, so the comparison is pretty rude.
Three, if the best argument you have in defense of slaughtering tens (more likely hundreds) of thousands of people is that more people are dying elsewhere, you're very far gone.
I wish you the best of luck finding your way back; it won't be easy but you really need to try.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
If sarcastic:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
One interesting excuse I hear about slavery in America was that that’s just how life was back then, people didn’t know better. This is not true, as we know for a fact abolitionist knew what right and wrong was during those times. Even if it was only a small percentage of people that knew morality, it’s enough proof that that no American alive at the time lacked the human capacity to perceive it.
This is still true today. We know what’s going on here morally, and as a collective whole (8 billion people), we are collectively responsible. The moral standard does not change. It was wrong to murder people 2000 years ago, it was wrong to enslave people 2000 years ago, and all of that is still wrong today. Honest people knew it then, and honest people know it today.
No bullshit, please. Right and wrong is never a morally nebulous problem, it’s just an utterly strict standard to adhere to. It never changes. It’s an understated reason why many have no fear of God or have abandoned the concept entirely, not just because there’s no proof, but because even if there was, what a fucking moral standard to live up to (quite hard for humanity since the beginning of time).
?????
I am generally not at all invested in this conflict and I cede that I have very little information about what is going on, and it's been like that for me for decades.
But the information that is available to me, in the current context, from looking at HN, is: pro-Palestine and anti-Israeli sentiments are the norm in comment sections here; comments resisting this viewpoint are routinely downvoted and flagged; news stories about the conflict that make it to the HN front page (including this one) overwhelmingly are taking Palestine's side; and on occasions where I've tried to flag submissions that I felt were grossly uncharitable (making claims beyond what their evidence supports, and/or using inflammatory language) they have not been taken down (and I've only seen anti-Israel examples of such to flag).
At any rate, your comment is a polemic that appears not to even consider reasons why other people might see the issue differently, and implicitly shames people for not coming to a conclusion you consider obvious. That is not up to the standard I understood HN political discussion to expect.
(And since I have showdead on, I can see the replies to you that were flagged and killed. They are really not any worse from what I can tell, but they apparently have the wrong political polarity — the one you claim is endorsed, directly counter to the evidence available to me.)
P.S. Whoever downvoted and flagged this, please explain your reasoning. I am happy to consider your point of view.