2) Israel is a nuclear power. You think they'll let themselves be exterminated (and that's what their opponents want) without using their bombs?
Your #1 is encoding an unexamined assumption that there is a fixed or at least somewhat inflexible amount of violence to be directed anywhere. It also ignores the lightning generation engine, so to speak, that is the settler colonialism causing unrest across the region.
On #2 - Rational people see that they are willing to do everything short of nuclear war when they feel like their century of history is being re-evaluated, and are worried about that (appropriately so). Also, it is an error to assert that nations can be exterminated. That is something evil that happens to people. As organizations of people, institutions and states can fail or be dissolved, but do not disappear permanently so long as people remain to re-form them. I think rational people can argue that the things that are being done in Palestine are unconscionable and that a state that is built to systematically support those acts needs to renew its principles and recommit itself to the idea of "never again".
Note though, that Germany's commitment to "never again" got somehow repurposed in exactly letting the thing happen again. Be it because politicians here are not actually educated enough to recognize the thing they should prevent, want to close their eyes to the fact that the once-victim now perpetrator, did it and they did nothing to stop it, they just don't care, the weapon exports are just too good of a business, or whatever. Germany has utterly failed to prevent the thing from happening ever again, and Israel has proven our collective "blind spot". The one entity, that no German politician is allowed to criticize. And still the political climate is such that, most likely, if you criticize Israel in any way, your political career is over and you get branded as an anti-Semite. Oh the irony of it.
While it should actually be a huge headline in every newspaper, that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and is still committing it as we sit here, the newspapers are awfully quiet. It seems like it is not even worth a headline. Man, the truth hurts. Sucks when your reporting has been so biased all along. Hard to make a 165 degree turn now, I guess (I give them 15 degree, for the occasional reporting on the matter at all.).
That's a weird thing to say, I thought it was because they set up governance amid a collapsed empire and defended themselves in a war
Israel has been playing that victim card for decades. It allowed them to get where they are. Now that card is crumbling, as they did the unthinkable. I hope that one day our German politicians will also realize this. It is becoming quite ridiculous, how Germany behaves in foreign policy in that regard, and many people here are ashamed of their own country and government. This is stuff that makes people vote for extremists, which I can tell you, we have no additional need for right now. To me it is unthinkable to ever elect the ruling parties again, due to how shitty they handled everything. Well, already wouldn't vote for them anyway, because of all the corruption in their ranks.
Who has convincingly argued that it was against the wishes of the British? It was the British government's stated objectives.[0][1]
[1] https://aish.com/unlikely-zionists-the-fascinating-story-of-...
> Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…
I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would be less killing and lying. In the first order effect maybe. But if you let a terrorist state control an area, that's obviously not good for global stability. But then again it might be self contained, kind of like a backwards place that exists in its own bubble.
same you can ask why Islam conquests would even exist to begin with if everybody was already Muslim. Just that one thing ruins everything eh?
same about Christian crusades etc.
Religions want to expand. Some more than others.
And these guys sing whatever they want about Him, like it or not:
Barclay James Harvest - Hymn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_James_Harvest
The song was very popular in the peak rock music era, and among the youth.
WTF is going on with this site? You sure have people real comfortable to say this kind of shit here.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
But everyone reading this, see how the above post turned the words just slightly from OP they defended and my response, to try and change the discourse/make me defend something different/uncomfortable versus what I originally replied to? Not claiming they did that on purpose, but if they did it would be an example of what Sartre said. Not saying you intentionally misconstrued/misrepresented what I said. Just saying that you happened to do the thing.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Edit: can't post but there is no need to bring Esptein into it at all if it's just about manipulation fears (since the USA has supported Israel long before Epstein). Both of you specifically brought Epstein needlessly into your arguments. I'm done dancing and doing word play like the quote says.
Remove exception to AIPAC political status
Reevaluate AIPAC non profit status entirely
Replicate EO 14046 for Israel which adds the entire ruling party and head of state and spouses and military and affiliated business to the OFAC list
all of this is easy and doesn’t require Congress
but nobody is close to considering those actions with regard to Israel. Notably, other nation’s organizations do not enjoy this courtesy
(Don’t sorry guys, Hamas is already on these lists too)
Primaries.
The truth is that foreign policy rarely flips American elections. Particularly when we don't have our troops on the ground.
Part of being in a leadership position is taking responsibility for what happens on your watch. The electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed.
Now do down ballot.
> electorate can't be blamed for its leaders not doing their jobs when the their leadership is needed
Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war. Even if they thought they were just throwing a tantrum. That includes the war’s repercussions, including the dissolution and incorporation of Palestine.
If you care about net effect, the answer is obvious. If how one feels reigns supreme, yes, that voting bloc is excused. (But still irrelevant.)
As I stated before, changing a political party from the bottom up takes time. While a good endeavor, it doesn't affect who is currently in the drivers seat. Either Harris or Trump were going to be making the decisions about the current Gaza situation regardless of what the electorate did.
> Pro-Palestinian voters who swung for Trump explicitly endorsed the war.
Pro-palestinian voters didn't swing to trump. Virtually no one swang to Trump; his election results in 2024 were basically the same as in 2020 plus the increase in population of areas that voted for him in 2020. Exit polls indicate that Trump voters were overwhelmingly pro-israel. I'm sure some individuals did, but not enough to make any difference one way or the other. Trump won because 6 million democrats who showed up in 2020 stayed home in 2024. If they had gone out and voted for Harris, and then Harris supported Israel's efforts, as she publicly said she would, you would still be saying they endorsed the war.
And the system is designed to exclude independents. The last nationally visible "I" candidate was roughly H Ross Perot. The system made sure that didn't happen again.
Now acting mildly concerned when the neighbour downstreet (Qatar) got their chickens bombed.
Thing is, what was bombed there was Hamas leadership, not some rank-and-file goons.
It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war.
Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.
In the case of Hamas, they are in fact terrorists. So the analogy fails.
My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.
The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war.
More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.)
> war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people
One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
To be clear, the estimate doesn’t sound incredulous. I’m just curious to see how they are estimating.
Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?
It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
In Gaza, people are just herded from one kill box to another, back and forth.
I don't remember UN asking to setup refugee camps or helping them to evacuate out of war zone
and you ignored the middle, which says that IDF using same procedures like USA (and in other words entire NATO)
how do you see surgical strikes on this ? and what kind of munition ?
or what is surgical strike when you have hamas team with rpg in the window of the building ?
Never let a good crisis go to waste they say
You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further.
It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide.
Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.
You know nothing about me.
Hell, turn your fresh water off too.
Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years.
Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well.
Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way.
Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby.
When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition.
No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets.
Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because.
[0]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
There's a phrase that's widely attributed (arguably misattributed) to Lenin:
"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/692948/u.s.-back-israel-militar...
It's easier to talk about these things and seeing consensus shift on consensus driven forums like this. My prior observations about that state's policies and supporting culture have been similar, but seen as extreme and "cancellable" at one point. Espousing my observations would have been conflated with ideas of physical harm to Jewish and Israelis, which I don't harbor. My ideas are much more similar to Jewish Israeli residents that protest their own government within Israel. And it's been nice to see many stateside Jewish people distance themselves, and now even second guess Zionism, which Jewish community leaders initially denounced 120 years ago by foreseeing these specific issues and its inherent extremism.
When it comes to my country's involvement, it's a complete aberration in US foreign policy. The reasons require a contorting ourselves for no real practical reason that isn’t already fulfilled by other countries in the Middle East, it’s just money moved from one account to the account of our politicians and appointed representatives.
So I am happy to see piece by piece, people re-evaluating the state narrative on that country. The politicians with discretion on all the levers are unfortunately a far cry away from changing anything.
Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.
It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.
I understand that that's the current shorthand, but it seems inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing to me.
I suppose you could that in theory but only in theory. In practice, the current situation is not very surprising given the overall trajectory since the inception of the country. It's very disturbing to see the memes that are coming out of the social media of the soldiers and even the general population.
Even if the current govt. of the country changes, I wouldn't hold my breath about the new government making reparations or taking any other positive steps.
Zionism is a desire to have a majority-jewish state that is strong enough to protect jews from future pogroms. It is not a quest for a homogenous state.
And before you declare that the existence of Arab municipalities make Israel an apartheid state, all Israeli cities are mixed.
Likewise, there are Jewish villages. Few of these have Arab inhabitants, but it is not forbidden for them to move in.
All other people except Palestinians then? It sure seems like this is exactly the treatment they have received over the decades.
By your own logic here, you would suggest that the people killed in the heinous terrorist attack in october 2023 were killed because they did not stop being violent?
Of course that is a ridiculous statement.
Palestinians have been oppressed and attacked and their land taken, by Israel, for many decades. This does not justify terrorist attacks, but neither do the attacks justify what Israel has done.
We can keep in mind that the most promising peace deal was sabotaged by extremists from Israel.
I have no sympathy for terrorists of any nationality or designation, which is why I condemn both Hamas and the current administration of Israel.
That's a nice euphemism for "they saw the next village massacred, so they ran away when the army approached their village".
For better or worse, Netanyahu represents the Israeli governement, which represents Israel. Similar with Trump and the USA, or Putin and Russia. Sorry for the people who don't agree with them, but that's an internal power struggle, and as an outsider it is normal to abstract that away. For all of us: Your country is doing what it does.
As a Belgian, I spit on my idiotic, nasty governements. Insert tiny violin, whatever Belgium does on the international forum, I'll still be tarred with it. Similarly, we talk about Germany's role in world war 2, even if only about 10% of them were associated with the NSDAP.
Every power struggle is always represented overly simplistic. Sorry for both the jews and Israëli's who don't agree with it, you're probably good people. This time I am lucky to sit at a very comfortable sideline, criticising your country. But the point stands: Israel is correctly described as officially committing a genocide, and hence it can't be described as the good side.
It is incredulous to you and I because our culture would never support such a thing. I implore you to look at the Arabic channels that Hamas and the other Islamic bodies publish.
It should be also noted, and this is extremely well documented, that between 1/3 and 1/5 of all Hamas rockets fall back into the Gaza strip. That is an extraordinarily dense urban area, and all those injuries are blamed on Israel. Culturally, it makes sense for Arab media to report them as "killed in a war with Israel". But Western media then translates and reports that as "killed by Israel".
This is not some conspiracy theory the Arabs status very clearly. I highly suggest that you go through the Arabic Telegram channels. I personally speak Arabic, but if you don't then Telegram has a built-in translation feature anyway. Or go through any other Arab media, it's all over the place.
If you don't want to see children getting hurt, then stop protecting and encouraging Hamas.
It means that Hamas has children stand guard around rocket launchers. As far back as a decade ago, when this started becoming more and more common, I saved a video of a Hamas rocket fuse failing, killing the children guarding it. That was quite when I started taking more of an interest in what is going on over there.
The human shields are Gazan citizens - many of which are themselves happy to die "for the resistance" thanks to UNRWA education. This I have been told at least twice by Gazans face to face, and dozens of times online. Yes, I know Gazans and I speak with them online in Arabic. I suffer a lot of abuse, I have a thick skin (I laugh that I'm divorced, you can't insult me more than my ex).
There is no euphemism. These are real people risking their lives - and sometimes loosing - to protect military equipment designed to exterminate Jews. That is not a euphemism either - even the Gazans who work in Israel clearly state that all Gazans would happily kill any Jew. Just a few weeks before the October attacks I was having a conversation, pleasant and civil, and the guy tells me "without your weapons the Arabs would trample you" - I was unsure if he was threatening me. Just a few weeks after that they overran the Kibbutz where I until recently worked, and killed over 10% of the population. That is literal, biblical, decimation.
No, I'm speaking about the most oft repeated lie about genocide.
Go look at who authored this report. It is not "Top Legal Investigators" as the title states. And just read the report itself.
You can be for the existence of a peaceful Israel that has entirely retreated within recognised borders and made amends for its past genocidal behaviour- but it's not what the current Israel is or, sadly, can ever be.
> There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against...
No. Not at all.
Its more of a popular jewish movement that over 100 years changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
Political scheming is secondary and was born well after the 1840s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
> changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
Zionism itself is a product of 19th century nationalisms and of course of a (widespread at the time) colonial mindset.
And what if they should? Do you think it make Israel's genocide look better now?
Stop trying to change the subject or shift the blame, it's a trick and it's pathetic.
This conversation went like this:
>>>> ppl keep railing about being pro or anti Israel and it's overly simplistic and also not really accurately describing things. It's more pro/anti Likud or Kahanists
To which I replied that Israel is constitutionally born out of a pre-planned colonisation and ethnic cleansing and it's wrong to think that its supremacist ideology only belongs to a part of its political spectrum- it could change but it's unfortunately unrealistic.
>>> Israel was literally born out of political scheming to get assigned a portion of someone else's territory for an exclusive ethno-nationalistic state; then out of ethnically cleansing that territory. It was necessary to the project and planned in advance.
To which the GP replied with something that tries to change the subject on Arab states, at the same time introducing a historical falsehood:
>> The Arab states haven't made amends for ethnically cleansing huge numbers of Jews
Now,
1) the Arab states are not born out of a planned ethnic cleansing of anyone (at least not in the recent past)
2) Many, perhaps most of the Jews that immigrated to Israel did so voluntarily (made Aliyah)
3) By the way, Israel itself even engaged in false flag terrorism to push Jews to emigrate from Arab countries to Israel.
And most importantly, the argument has no bearing with the original subject, which is whether its a specific political side that is determining Israel's course now or the country is constitutionally like that. Arab countries have nothing to do with the subject, they belong to a different conversation.
Hope it helps.
Also recall that it was only a UN recommendation, not a binding resolution.
Curious you ask: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/israel-gaza-blockade-s...
German and Bosnian WWII veterans, including a handful of former intelligence, Wehrmacht, and Waffen SS officers, were among the volunteers fighting for the Palestinian cause. Veterans of WWII Axis militaries were represented in the ranks of the ALA forces commanded by Fawzi al-Qawuqji (who had been awarded an officer's rank in the Wehrmacht during WWII) and in the Mufti's forces, commanded by Abd al-Qadir (who had fought with the Germans against the British in Iraq) and Salama (who trained in Germany as a commando during WWII and took part in a failed parachute mission into Palestine).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Arabian_Legion
Husseini is still regarded by many as 'the George Washington' of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored in the way our founding father is.
In February 1943 the first of three divisions was formed of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims, who wore fezes decorated with SS runes and were led in their prayers by regimental imams notionally under the supervision of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.(Mohammed Amin al-Husseini from 1921–1937)
I never said this in my post. This is a reflexive defense on your part as I never specifically called out Zionists, in general, supported genocide. I said, the vast majority of the Knesset, supports genocide. I will say though, zionists in general are wishfully ignorant of this fact.
>This is defamatory BS without any evidence at best
Which parts are defamatory? Are you seriously going to argue that the Religious Zionist Party doesn't support genocide? Cmon man, Bezalel Smotrich is wanted by the ICC.[1]
I think you're overthinking this. We're taking about a country committing genocide here. You either support them or you don't.
But, how about Israel's declaration of independence? Arguably more representative of the consensus.
"WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions."
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/israel.asp
And guess what, those that listened are now part of the one million Israeli Arab citizenry.
I think if we see nuance we can acknowledge it. The worldwide campaign against Israel is devoid of nuance. Some western leaders pay lip service to the idea of removing Hamas and that Israeli hostages should be released but in fact they are taking actions that prolong the war and embolden Hamas. Basically the way the world looks at it is "we told Israel to stop and it doesn't" vs. the way it should be looking at is "What would any other country in the world be doing in these circumstances and what are the conditions Israel is looking for to end the violence and how do we get to those conditions.". There is also orchestrated pressure via social media and media like Al Jazeera that pushes narratives that we're seeing in this thread and is not factual. The cries of genocide started before Israel barely fired a shot after it was attacked and what we're reading today is the same talking points that have been flooding social media for the last two years alongside with an unprecedented flood of war imagery we have not seen in any other conflict because the sole purpose of Hamas is to get as many people killed and injured and attack Israel's image. It's been doing that really well.
Being critical of Israel's actions is 100% ok. I am very critical. But what we're seeing is public lynching, not criticism. There is nothing Israel can ever do that is right here. There are no suggestions or proposals for Israel to adjust course that make any sense. Calls for a "cease fire" don't and haven't made any sense because cease fire (which we've had) means Hamas remains in control of Gaza, can re-arm and attack Israel again, and keeps the hostages. Typically this is where the discussion goes to the standard talking points of "didn't start Oct 7th", "Gaza was occupied", "UN blah blah blah", and rhetoric which ignores Hamas and the role of Palestinians in getting where are today. We have maybe 5% of the people in these discussions (on both side - I'll admit that) who have any sense of nuance. We have maybe 1% of people who have enough knowledge on the topic/history etc. We have ideology and propaganda being the dominant forces.
So this is why this shouldn't be on Hacker News. There are enough other avenues for online "discussion" (which this is not) on the dividing topics of the day.
Israel just bombed residential Qatar the other day, killing and injuring civilians. Israel celebrated. They seem to be completely unrestrained.
So even if you're personally ok with Gazans being eliminated, there are other reasons we should be paying attention. Speaking of nuance.
Israel is eliminating far more than the "offending group" and they're doing it in a cold blooded, inhumane manner. That's why it's not "self defense". It's shameful.
This is factually incorrect, and even if it were true it's not exactly a great example for you to rest your case on.
> the IDF is actually doing far better than any other army in protecting civilians
According to who, Israel? Not according to the thousands of women and children they've murdered. Who likely far outnumber the number of militants they've killed.
Wasn’t sure who you were talking about there. Still not.
"Attacks began in 2001. Since then (August 2014 data), almost 20,000 rockets have hit southern Israel,[35][36] all but a few thousand of them since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005."
...
"Some analysts see the attacks as a shift away from reliance on suicide bombing, which was previously Hamas's main method of attacking Israel, as an adoption of the rocket tactics used by the Lebanese group Hezbollah."
But we're going way back, during this ongoing war: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/10/7/live-hezbo...
"Updates: Hamas, Hezbollah fire rockets at Israel on October 7 anniversary"
There is no such defence against a charge of genocide.
The lawyers who wrote the international treaty, many of whom themselves survived the Holocaust and lost their relatives in it, carefully considered whether to add such a defence. They did not add it. They considered that genocide is a crime for which there is no excuse. That is should be possible to defend yourself without resorting to it.
In any case, the group at issue is not Hamas. The genocide is being conducted against all Palestinians.
Your argument also conveniently omits the extreme level of military dominance which Israel has over the Palestinians.
The real reason many Israelis cannot conceive of a solution other than killing or expelling them, is: how can we leave them there, after the level of hatred, murder, violence, and abuse we have heaped on them over the last two years? We have taken revenge for our 36 dead children, won't they want revenge for their 20,000?
- hamas refuses to disarm
- nobody wants to be part of international force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Shani_Louk
EDIT: More likely Naama Levy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Naama_Levy
I hope the answer to that last question includes those joining Hamas because of the first couple hundred thousands of Gazans killed.
What Israel's critics will add to that is that Israel has no right to self defense because it was occupying Gaza before the Oct 7th attack.
They'll also downplay the Oct 7th attack, claim Israelis killed their own, there was no sexual violence etc.
Then they'll look at the number of casualties as another proof. It's not "proportional". Israel is only allowed to kill a certain number of people in its wars. Otherwise it's clearly not self defense. But only for Israel, for other countries, still self defense.
People see bodies, children, on their social media feeds and destruction and that makes it very clear who the good guys and who the bad guys are.
Israel can't win this argument. Don't look for logic. Days after the Oct 7th attack Israel was already accused of genocide. Nothing Israel can do here is right and the actions western countries have taken (e.g. US post 9/11 or western response to ISIS) are not available to Israel because Israel shouldn't even exist and therefore should definitely not be allowed to defend itself (vs. the Americans and the Canadians who have lived on their land for 10,000 years and definitely didn't just steal it from the natives and kill all of them).
The only thing Israel can win is the actual war on the ground and so the leadership of Israel, while making many mistakes, is determined to win the war on the ground. Not all Israelis agree with that either. Personally I don't know if any other options really exist.
All that said, you can't really argue with the fact the population of Gaza is suffering immensely, many of them have lost everything they've had, many killed and injured, they live in terrible conditions. I mostly blame Hamas. I also blame the west for prolonging this war and not offering any reasonable solutions to Israel. Israel has faults and can and should do better but for the most part its hand is forced and has been forced by Palestinian violence/actions for some time. Maybe Gaza should have been taken immediately after Hamas took over in 2007. Maybe there would have been other courses of actions including post Oct 7. I donno. Oct 7th stunned me, it was an utter failure. Not really seeing anything proposed here at this point in time and don't recall seeing anything productive going back.
So all in all it's terrible. There's human suffering. We need to end it. The only way out I see is for Hamas to surrender. Let's get there and then we can debate what words mean, two states, one state, where do we go from here. This was is not going to end e.g. by the US telling Israel to end it.
With pressure on Hamas to surrender after being defeated in a war they started, this conflict would probably be over long ago.
The oppression is the biggest reason Hamas can grow. If that stopped I think with time Hamas would weaken and disappear. Like IRA in Northen Ireland eventually did.
Wrong. It is only their goal to occupy "everything" because they got attacked and need to secure their borders.
Israel already tried to completely withdraw from Gaza which evidently isn't a feasible solution. And this behavior, which cannot sensibly disputed, would also directly and thoroughly contradict any ambitions for genocide as well for that matter.
Israel has to leave the west bank eventually and what they do is wrong. But it is only tangentially related to the current war in Gaza.
However it still has considerable weaponry and underground facilities and it is still holding Israeli hostages. The issue isn't Hamas tomorrow. The issue is the consequence of letting Hamas retake the entire Gaza strip and rebuild itself, and the loss of deterrence when Hamas is going to declare they won the war once it ends on their terms.
I can relate to your point though and many people would agree with you. Let's stop killing people and see where this takes us is not an unreasonable position. But Israel is still in PTSD from Oct 7th and the mood is that it can't afford to take a chance here and that any stop/pause will just result in a higher price for Israelis and Palestinians paid a little down the line. The truly totally "unreasonable" side here is Hamas and I see how you can't understand their calculus because it is so death-cult fanatical.
I think a lot would have been won if the illegal settlements stopped and the apartheid like system ended. Hamas (and any other resistance) lives on the resentment created from that.
It think if Israel went back to the border of -67 and then did not try to expand its territories. It would with time resolve.
What would happen is exactly what did happen. Hamas would take over the entire territory. Arm to the teeth. Dig tunnels. And launch endless attacks against Israel.
I'm not a fan of the settlements but they are not the issue. The issue is Jewish presence in the middle east. When there were no settlements Israel was attacked. Pre-1967 it was still attacked. Pre-1948 Jews were still attacked. I don't think there should be any settlements and I would support dismantling them. I also condemn the settler violence against Palestinians. But again, this isn't really the issue, this is an outcome. Israel should have either annexed the west bank and given citizenship to all Palestinians or not allowed Israeli civilians to live there.
Tell me how the Jewish people murdered German civilians, broadcasted that to the world, committed hundreds of suicide bombing attacks in German cafes, supermarkets, malls and theaters, and fired 20,000 rockets at major German cities. Just so I can complete your analogy in my head. Also explain to me how what Israel is doing in Gaza to Palestinians is in any way comparable to the Nazis murdering six million Jews by rounding them up, loading them on trains to concentration camps, and then packing them in gas chambers. How does this compare with Israel targeting Hamas combatants, evacuating civilians population, and providing them with aid?
I can’t remember, was that the third or fourth time in 20 years that all of Israel’s neighbors simultaneously invaded it and lost territory? It’s hard to keep track with all of the wars of aggression against Israel that Israel won and gained territory from.
I’m sure it’s not a sign of bias how often, eg, the UN writes reports on Israel versus murdered Christians in Africa.
Albert Einstein added his name to a famous letter to the NY Times in the late 40's, in which EXACTLY THIS was explained, in plain & uncompromising language, in the very first paragraph. For Israel to exist, it would have to be just like the Nazis. That's LITERALLY what that letter said.
The splitting of a non-existing hair argument that you're trying to do is just to avoid admitting that you've been wrong the entire time, and enough people warned (or boasted) about it from the very beginning that you really don't have an excuse for being this wrong.
If you don’t have the capacity to stop it but you do have the capacity to offer them a home shouldn’t you ?
Or is it the moral equivalent to the American “thoughts and prayers “?
It’s similar to the Ukrainian Russian meat grinder. The support is only extended enough for this to continue on forever
Nor is available power and leverage being brought to bear on stopping them. Any honest attempt at helping innocents being traumatized would start there.
Then yes, facilitating voluntary movement after that would help, without also blatantly facilitating those who want to drive them out.
Europe accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees to keep them out of harms way, why do they not extend the same helping hand to Palestinians from Gaza? who are, at least according to this UN report, in much worse condition?
My idea is to buy the gaza strip from the residents and they can take their newfound wealth to another arab country and be prosperous happy and peaceful there.
But yeah, the fact that no one is taking them in proves they are all a bunch of anti semites or virtue signallers. They don't care about palestinians, it's just politically convenient to pretend that they do.
It would be far less costly to give each family in Gaza $100k and a plane ticket than to continue this humanitarian disaster.
Just realise this: your propaganda playbook stopped working a long time ago. I doubt you have the slightest inkling of how much deep loathing much of humanity has developed for your Zionist Nazi movement. And every time you smirkly suggest that the victims should just surrender, you turn stomachs.
Your failing propaganda only works to convince others of the only possible solution. The end of this evil settler-colonial monstrosity, and the return of ALL the land to its native population.
But to be balanced it has to work both ways. Send everyone back where they came from! All the immigrants must go back to their home country. But the Jews! Where do they come from? Oh... Yeah.
Zionism is the idea of colonial occupation. The internal logic will always end in ethnic cleansing. It did in 1948. It's doing it now. American Manifest Destiny had a similar function, and it also resulted in massive genocide for which we have not atoned.
Zionism is done. A secular democratic state for all people with the right of return guaranteed for displaced Palestinians along with some kind of reeducation / denazification program for the genocidal citizens of the current state of Israel is the only viable solution.
As a Jew, I don't think Arabs should pay for Germany's crimes. I think Germany should pay. They paid a little already. They should pay more, especially now that they are supporting this genocide too.
Germany no, but the Arab states should definitely pay for ethnically cleansing the Mizrahi Jews who currently make up a majority of Israeli Jews.
Source: https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic...
Isn't the very goal of "progress" in progressive to move away from victimhood to self-determined?
But we often don't have world powers pay immeasurable or insurmountable amounts due to the game theory that slip-up's between world powers are inevitable, and when they find themselves in a compromising and vulnerable enough position that another nation state can exert enough power on them to "punish" them, those world powers are already decimated enough that the only logical reason for the punishment is retribution/revenge, thereby adding more "hurt" into the world - when that world power's decimation was already its justice.
A lot of people were displaced, forcibly moved to other areas, often to labor camps after WWII. Somehow we are able to accept this new order and live in peace. Arabs started multiple war over it, lost all of them, are still waging war today. The road to peace for them is to lay down arms, surrender and accept the resolution made by the winning side - exactly what we all have done after WWII.
You are wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet
2. This was during war time.
3. "This strategy is subject to controversy, with some historians characterizing it as defensive, while others assert that it was an integral part of a planned strategy for the expulsion, sometimes called an ethnic cleansing, of the area's native inhabitants".
4. This article seems to be pretty biased based on the terminology used. Wikipedia often is a political battleground.
5. This is regurgitating anti-Israel talking points. If you have a deeper insight please share it.
Let's just look at some details ( https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%99... ):
" ב-29 בנובמבר 1947 החליט האו"ם על תוכנית החלוקה, שכללה את סיום המנדט הבריטי בארץ ישראל ואת הקמתן של מדינה עברית ושל מדינה ערבית בשטחה. יום לאחר מכן, ב-30 בנובמבר 1947, תקפו ערבים ביריות אוטובוס יהודי בקרבת פתח תקווה, הרגו חמישה מנוסעיו ופצעו שבעה. ביריות אלה נפתחה מלחמת העצמאות, שנמשכה כשנה ושבעה חודשים."
So post the UN resolution to end the British Mandate and create a Jewish (and Arab) state in the region (which the Arabs rejected) there was an attack that killed 5 civilians near Petah Tikva that started Israel's war of independence (terrorism has been a theme back then before there was Israel).
"המטרה האסטרטגית של הערבים: ליצור טרור ברחבי הארץ שיגרום להפסקת עלייה, לעזיבת יישובים יהודיים ולהתנוונות היישוב היהודי בארץ "
The Arabs' strategic plan was via terrorism to deter Jewish people from migrating to Israel and "ethnically cleanse" it from Jews (the text says "make them leave their villages").
" .
יש היסטוריונים הטוענים כי סילוק הערבים מתחומי המדינה היהודית היה המטרה העיקרית של התוכנית. חלקם סבור כי מטרת תוכנית ד' הייתה להשתלט על שטחי המדינה הערבית המיועדת ומניעת הקמתה. לדעת ההיסטוריון יואב גלבר קריאה כזו במסמכים מתמקדת בסעיף אחד ומוציאה אותו מהקשרו. לדבריו, סעיפים אלו הנוגעים להתנהגות עם האוכלוסייה הערבית הם משניים בתוכנית שעיקרה היה היערכות לפלישה הצפויה של צבאות ערב. בנוסף, הוא טוען כי קיימת התעלמות מכך שההנחיה לגרש כפריים התייחסה רק לאלו שיגלו התנגדות פעילה ויילחמו ולא למי שייכנע לאנשי ההגנה, וזאת מתוך כוונה למנוע מלוחמים ערבים להפוך את הכפרים לבסיסים נגד היישובים היהודיים הסמוכים.["
Some historians claim that removing Arabs from Israel was the main idea. However Yoav Gelber (mentioned here, a history professor that research this), says that was a minor portion of the plan that shouldn't be read out of context and points out that this only applies to villages that would be used as bases for attacking nearby Jewish towns during the war, where there are armed forces and refuse to surrender.
" "כיתור הכפר ועריכת חיפוש בתוכו. במקרה של התנגדות - השמדת הכוח המזוין וגירוש האוכלוסייה אל מעבר לגבול המדינה... במקרה של אי התנגדות - יוכנס חיל מצב לתוך הכפר, אשר יתבצר במקום או במקומות המאפשרים שליטה טקטית מוחלטת. מפקד חיל המצב יחרים את כל כלי הנשק, כל מקלטי א-ט [אלחוט רדיו] וכל כלי הרכב... יאסור את כל האישים החשודים מבחינה פוליטית. בהתייעצות עם הגורמים המדיניים ימונו מוסדות מבין תושבי הכפר להנהלת ענייניו הפנימיים. "
The plan was basically the strategic plan for being able to defend the territory of Israel against the attack by the Arabs (local and surrounding). So the context is already the understanding that once the British leave Israel will be attacked - which happened. It dealt with villages that were hostile, in certain areas, and with being able to create and control defensible territory against Arab armies. Only given armed resistance the population was to be expelled. This was 1948, maybe today this doesn't fly but this sort of stuff happened a lot in the world those days. At the end of the day, Israel was not ethnically cleansed in 1947-48, many Arabs live there to date. Of those that left (the 1948 refugees) the forced expulsion are a minority.
I'm not necessarily proud of all these aspects but given the creation of a new state, with armed forces threatening it from day 1, this is what happened. As I mentioned in other replies, Israel called on the Arabs to become full and equal citizens of the new state (a solutions some people are suddenly remembering to advocate for) and the Arabs refused. They refused. This conflict is not about the Arabs wanting to live in their property as equal citizens in a free/democratic country. They had this option and they refused. This conflict is about erasing Jewish presence in the region. Has been and still is.
Insinuating that diaspora Jews don’t do Seder, or don’t do it “the right way”, is insulting and gross.
I am making an assumption that a Jewish person who claims Jews have no connection to Israel doesn't practice those aspects of Judaism that emphasize this connection, of which there are many. I am also making this point for the benefit of the non-Jews who are not familiar with Jewish traditions who claim Jews have no connection to Israel and Zionism is some sort of modern invention of that connection.
But if I insulted anyone, given that Yom Kippur is upon us, I apologize and hope you forgive me.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/25/us-news/andrew-cuomo-joins-hig...
More worrying for Israel is that it's becoming a partisan issue. That goes to both ends - previously unthinkable, unwavering support under Republicans but a very short leash under the Democrats.
A highly salient political issue becoming partisan is a good thing in a representative democracy, as that is the only thing that makes it possible for the public to influence it by general election votes.
Every possible alignment of circumstances “backfires” in FPTP because FPTP is a fundamentally bad way to elect a legislature.
That’s not a problem of, e.g., salient political issues becoming partisan—representing a coherent position on salient issues is the only useful thing parties can do—it is a problem of FPTP.
And as for the Right, it's primarily isolationism, but they certainly aren't going to favoring Palestine over Israel anytime. That's already hedged in. At the end of day, it largely goes against of the interests of every actor not aligned with Iran or seeking stability to let Israel fall in favour of Palestine. We do need that hard power when America is retreating from the region.
Israel also has a law that says that the right of self-determination only belongs to its Jewish citizens- it calls itself the Jewish state. I would be entirely for a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone, but that thing cannot be Israel.
But a peace process might give people a few years of peace. And peace is the best starting point we have for further peace.
And you think they should just walk away from the hostages? If Hamas released the hostages the world would soon make Israel quit. But as it stands why in the world should they be expected to give up?
For many people that's amazing.
Ending unconditional US support is the only thing that motivates Israel to seek an end other than by genocide, which is a necessary (but not sufficient, on its own) condition for any desirable outcome.
Military intervention meaning invade a nuclear power?
And don't say "go home". The majority are descended from those expelled from Arab lands, there's no home to go to.
This sort of mentality will perpetuate conflict and atrocities.
Well, if Syria and Lebanon didn't want to lose territories, maybe they should not have started wars to ethnically cleans Jews from the place?
I mean, when you start a war with your neighbour with the goal of extermination, you don't get to complain when you lose.
In fact, you should be happy that even though you tried to exterminate them, they didn't try to exterminate you when they won.
The whole thing about ethnic cleansing is really turning history on its head. The reason why Israel is hated by its neighbors is because Israel was founded by European settlers who conquered and ethnically cleansed the land.
Sure, Israel struck Egypt first, but Syria is not Egypt. And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial considering Egypt's naval blockade, expulsion of peacekeepers, deployment of ~100k troops near Israel's border, and Nasser being pretty explicit about his intentions.
> And calling it a preemptive strike should be pretty uncontroversial
It's actually highly controversial, given that:
1. Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel (as we now know for certain).
2. The Israeli leadership was extremely confident in its own military dominance over Egypt, and that it would win any war quickly.
3. The Israeli leadership of the time had ambitions of territorial expansion.
Where are you getting this idea from? A leader with no intention of attacking Israel would not have made statements like
"We will not accept any possibility of co-existence with Israel. [...] The war with Israel is in effect since 1948." (Nasser, May 28, 1967)
and then proceeded to amass ~100k troops near the border, or in Nasser's words: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ..."
As far as preemptive strikes go, it really doesn't get any clearer than this.
Not to mention the naval blockade which was in itself an act of war, making the question of who started the war rather moot.
The Israelis had been planning their own attack on Egypt for years. Ben Gurion had aggressive, expansionist foreign policy views, which the crisis with Egypt allowed him to implement.
The Israeli public was afraid of Egypt, but the leadership was extremely confident that Israel had massive military superiority over the Egyptians and would rapidly win any war. That's also what American intelligence thought, and what they told the Israelis.
As for Egyptian public statements about Israel, remember the political context: Israel had been founded 19 years earlier through the mass theft of Palestinian land and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel had carried out terrorist bombings in Cairo in the early 1950s in order to try to politically destabilize the country, and had invaded Egypt in 1956, as part of a conspiracy with Britain and France to take over the Suez Canal. The Egyptians had good reasons to view the Israelis as enemies and loudly complain, but we now know they had no intention of attacking.
In May–June 1967, in preparation for conflict, the Israeli government planned to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front, whilst taking into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front. Syrian front 5–8 June
Syria largely stayed out of the conflict for the first four days.
False Egyptian reports of a crushing victory against the Israeli army and forecasts that Egyptian forces would soon be attacking Tel Aviv influenced Syria's decision to enter the war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War#Golan_Heights
Two thirds of the area was depopulated and occupied by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed in 1981
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities in what is known as Operation Focus. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
Invaded what state? Mandatory Palestine? It sounds like you're just referring to (mostly legal) Jewish immigration. Would you apply the same label to Arab immigrants such as Arafat, or is it only an invasion when Jews immigrate?
Some of the worst atrocities have been committed by people who knew they were in the right, or people that were passing judgement on others on a mass scale. That you have zero reflection on it and just jump to 'zionism' is scary af, not gonna lie. I've lost a shit ton of karma hoping you would get any kind of self awareness. But you are all in on 'fuck 10 million people'. But like I said, at least you are honest that you are fine with whatever happens to millions of people, as long as they are people you judge unworthy of caring. Most pro-palestinians don't have the nerve to clearly state their intentions and are just downvoting me.
In order to be effective, US pressure would have to be aimed at forcing Israel to do one of two things:
1. Withdraw its military from the Palestinian territories (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza), dismantle all of its illegal settlements there, and recognize a fully sovereign Palestinian state. This is basically asking Israel to give up its dreams of taking over the Palestinian territories and to withdraw to its own borders - a simple ask.
2. Alternatively, Israel gets to keep the Palestinian territories, but it has to grant full, equal citizenship to the Palestinians who live there. That would mean that 50% of the Israeli electorate would be Palestinian, effectively ending the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. The next prime minister could be a Palestinian - who knows?
Israel has held onto the Palestinian territories for nearly 60 years without granting the people who live there (except for Israeli settlers) any rights. It has to either leave the occupied territories or grant everyone who lives under its control equal rights. It's actually quite a simple and reasonable demand.
Right now, because of unconditional US support, Israel has no incentive to do either of the above. Israel's leaders correctly believe that they can have it all: they can keep the land without granting the Palestinians who live there any rights. They operate with complete impunity. The US could end that impunity and impose real costs on Israel for its actions.
Both options laid out above (the 2-state and 1-state solution) are vastly better for the Palestinians than living under permanent Israeli military occupation with no rights, and subjected to continuous violence from the Israelis. It would not be the Palestinians who would block these types of solutions, were they actually on offer.
The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Arafat was offered something very close to a two state solution. He walked away without responding. He couldn't accept (he would have been assassinated if he agreed), he couldn't make a counter-offer because there was a risk of it being accepted, leading to the same end.
Look carefully at all the "peace" proposals from the Palestinians. All are non-viable due to details buried in them. Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
The offer made to Arafat was awful for many reasons that are well known, and that I won't go over here (but to give you an exanple, the proposal said that the Palestinians would have no military, and that the Israeli military would have the right to enter Palestine whenever it wanted, meaning that Palestine would not have real sovereignty).
> He walked away without responding.
Actually, he told the Israelis that the offer was a very bitter pill to swallow, and that he would have to show it to the Palestinian national council before he could accept it. Then, the PLO came back a few months later to negotiate further in Taba. The Israelis eventually broke off negotiations, because the ruling party was about to lose the election to a party that opposed the two-state solution.
> Typically this is hidden references to the "right of return".
It always amazes me how Israelis say the Palestinian right of return is so awful, absurd, outlandish, unacceptable, etc., when the entire founding ideology of the state of Israel is that the Jews have a right of return from 2000 years ago.
> The Israelis have a near monopoly on force in this conflict. They are the overwhelmingly dominant party, the only one with tanks, aircraft, destroyers and nuclear weapons. They have the power to dictate solutions, and that's what they've been doing for decades, using brute force. Pretending these are two equal sides that just can't agree is a fantasy.
Why should the losers of a conflict get to decide the terms? Has that ever happened, in all of recorded history? Say the Israelis don't want to give up East Jerusalem under any circumstances, what then? Would the Palestinian side be justified in "blocking" the resolution of the conflict?
The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
Today, I don't know. I don't think that there is a fair or best solution. They're probably going to just keep fighting until the Palestinian side is hollowed-out and the Israeli side is a Burma-tier pariah state.
Because might doesn't make right. Because there's such a thing as international law. Because it's wrong to steal land and force people out of their homes.
> The way I see it, the fairest and best outcome was a two-state solution with Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem -- this would have represented a compromise on both sides.
The Palestinians have already given up 78% of Palestine. They only want the rump: East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most big Israeli cities used to be Palestinian cities, until the Israelis conquered and ethnically cleansed them in 1948.
The standard 2-state solution is already a massive concession by the Palestinians. It's not the starting point for more concessions. You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The way out of this is massive international pressure on Israel. Israel is strong as long as it's beating up on almost completely defenseless Palestinians. But Israel is a small country that could be pressured by the US and EU fairly easily. Instead, they back it to the tune of billions of dollars a year and give it diplomatic support.
When has this stopped any army? And hasn't this very thing happened to Jews in Middle Eastern countries, who were sent packing without any hope of compensation?
> You're asking them to now concede the most cherished piece of Palestine that they haven't yet given up: East Jerusalem. That would be such a humiliation that the Palestinians would never accept it.
The same goes for the Israelis, who swear a religious oath by Jerusalem every year, and time has shown (repeatedly, at that,) that no Israeli leader will be induced to give it up.
At some point, you've got to admit defeat, or else the conflict will simply continue forever, very much to the detriment of all involved, and their children, who are innocent.
The passions obviously run high, but obviously both sides should compromise from the position of the status quo, and it's wishful thinking to suppose that the side that has prevailed in combat will knuckle-under and let the loser decide the terms of the peace. This is quite literally something that has never happened before.
Granted, the Israelis are fighting their war in a way that is deranged and quite dangerous for their own long-term survival. If they were somewhat more chivalrous, their own goals would be far better served; there appears to be a very nasty edge to Israeli democracy.
You seem to be conflating the region of Palestine, which has always included a mix of religions including Jews, with the modern Palestinian national identity.
If we're using "Palestinian" to mean someone from Palestine, why wouldn't we count a family from the First Aliyah as Palestinian? The Second Aliyah? Holocaust refugees?
Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period. Would you say they're not real Palestinians, because they joined too recently? How about Arafat, who doesn't have a "pure" unbroken Levantine lineage (being born in Cairo)?
Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights, perhaps less voting power, than families who have been here for multiple centuries?
> Some who now identify as Palestinian also immigrated during the economically prosperous Mandatory Palestine period.
Relatively few. Not enough to have much of an impact on the overall Arab population of Palestine. This is radically different than the Zionist colonization of Palestine, which was a mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory.
> Should American families who have only been here for one century have fewer rights
I think you would accept that the following two situations would be very different:
1. People immigrate to the US, settle down, send their kids to school, and eventually become American citizens.
2. A large group of people enter the US with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country - a country in which they want there to be as few Americans as possible. They have their own militias and operate completely outside the control of any government that the people of the United States control. Just to make this scenario more realistic, we can say that the US is currently under the rule of a foreign empire, so that Americans have no say in their own government. The foreign settlers start taking over large parts of the country. Finally, the UN says that the US should be split in two, giving half of it to the foreign settlers. The foreign settlers agree, but Americans think it's unfair and don't agree. War erupts. The foreign settlers, based on superior political organization and funding from abroad, quickly establish massive military dominance over the Americans, and go on to conquer 78% of the United States, expelling 80% of the American population from the territory they control.
Not exactly the same thing.
The numbers are largely unknown for border crossings. But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not. The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
And if we move past the rather old-fashioned idea that more recent immigrants don't count, the more relevant figure is that there was a (slight) Jewish majority within the partition plan borders.
> mass influx of people with the explicit intention of taking over control of the territory
Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
> with the explicitly stated goal of founding their own country
I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
Actually, we do have a very good idea. The demographics of Palestine were studied at the time (e.g., by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry), and are well understood. Arab population growth in Palestine was almost entirely due to simple births minus deaths, and was similar to population growth in other Arab countries of the time.
> But the point is that it's a gross oversimplification to say that Palestinians are native to Palestine (even those born outside?) while Jews are not.
Which Jews? There were Jews who were native to Palestine. They made up a few percent of the population of the region. But the overwhelming majority of the people who founded Israel were recent immigrants. The first Israeli prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was from Płońsk, Poland. The first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann was from Belarus. Golda Meir was from Odessa and grew up in Milwaukee. You can go down the list. They're almost all like that. Heck, the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was from Budapest, and barely ever set foot in Palestine (only once, I think).
> The intentional naming collision encourages this oversimplification.
The reason for the naming collision is simple: the Palestinians are the people who lived in Palestine before the Zionists came in, took over most of it and established Israel.
> Many of them simply had no choice, having been driven out of other MENA states.
No, that happened in the years after the founding of Israel, as a consequence of it. It turns out that kicking out hundreds of thousands of Arabs from their homes and loudly proclaiming that you're doing so in the name of the Jewish people is a really effective way of stoking antisemitism in Arab countries.
> I don't think that it's wrong to legally immigrate, regardless of any statehood aspirations, or that such immigrants are less deserving of any rights than other residents.
If you read the scenario I sketched out above and think it's the same as everyday immigration and is okay, I don't know what to tell you. It's like calling the European settlers who drove out Native Americans "immigrants."
The only one who pursued 2 state solution is Israel.
> he handed over more areas of west bank to PA
As Netanyahu explains in the video, he only handed over a small piece of territory, in exchange for a letter from the US saying that Israel could define "security zones" in the West Bank that would remain under Israeli control. That allowed Netanyahu to declare everything a security zone, blocking all future withdrawals. Netanyahu boasts in the video that he gave up a tiny piece of land to end the piece process and prevent there from ever being a Palestinian state.
In the years since, Netanyahu has repeatedly boasted that he's the one who prevented the creation of a Palestinian state. The founding charter of his party literally says that everything from the river to the sea should be Israel.
video from 2001. Bibi is not PM for 2 years already, and in 2000 there was camp david which could give palestinians state (they refused it, and started intifada instead). there were more negotiations that palestinians refused.
bibi boasting about something ? sure he does. he wants to appeal to electors. doesn't mean that he sabotaged anything.
and on topic of killing oslo peace process, i'll suggest you this lovely document from just after camp david that describes how palestians worked on implementing it: http://israelvisit.co.il/BehindTheNews/WhitePaper.htm . and in general to review second intifada
By targeting first responders, jornalists, paramedics, and any professionals able to properly rescue wounded, dead and count the causalties, making available numbers a gross underestimate on the true death toll. Just a few days ago we all watched a staircase full of working first responders and jornalists being blown by israeli tank fire.
And look at Israel vs Hezbollah--Hezbollah makes little use of human shield tactics, casualties run in the ballpark of 90% combatant. Same force, same type of opponent, what's the difference in Gaza? Hamas makes very heavy use of human shield tactics and worse. We see 30-50% combatants. That implies that the majority of the deaths are because of Hamas.
Why would the military in countries hostile to Israel provide Israel with advice or plans on defeating their enemies?
This is an argument that Hamas is bad not why buildings need to be destroyed
a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
As long as the Dahiya doctrine persists, it won't be. But that's an Israeli problem - their disproportionate response has been exploited for years. Hamas is fine letting Israel commit as many war crimes as it takes to satisfy their leadership, it very clearly hasn't changed tactics in recent years. The cost to Israeli international credibility seems to be "worth it" in their eyes.
So, if Israel wants peace they first have to stop escalation. But even if Hamas was defeated, we know that wouldn't be the end of things. Next the Druze has to be defended, which would result in a very justified annexation of south Syria and repeat of the same genocidal conditions in Gaza. They would also attempt to unseat power in Yemen, and then embroil America in an unwinnable war against Iran to sustain a true hegemony.
Currently there is war, peace is out of the window. First step is to stop the war, second step is to make both side actually negotiate.
It was attempted by Clinton a while ago but assassinations from mossad and hamas prevented the process to success.
To be honest, politicians have failed us too many times for my sad brain to believe that there will be a good outcome.
Most probably Israel society will keep radicalizing itself, Palestinians will be killed and Gaza bombed/annexed leading to the death of both Palestinian and Israeli civilization. Palestinian will be all dead and Israeli will have become in all manner what they initially sought to destroy, literal nazi.
I’d even bet that death by zyklon is more human that seeing your family and yourself getting slowly hungered to death. And contrary to nazi Germany, no Israeli can pretend to not know what’s going on.
The actual durable solution is something like how Sri Lanka defeated the Tamil Tigers, or how Russia defeated the insurgency in Chechnya. Which is roughly the same as what Israel is doing in Gaza now. But Israel is playing on hard mode because the international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas, prolonging the time until surrender.
I think this is key. The protest must condemn Hamas while supporting innocent people. Protests that support Hamas as some kind of justified resistance just prolongates everything. Hamas doesn't care for its people. It has an ideological system that glorifies death. Death is just a means to an end for them.
This is the problem of viewing things black and white. The whole conflict is varying shades of Grey.
Good job. The feat of not blaming the obvious aggressor is something very few accomplish.
Israel has control over water, electricty, gas, road, "law enforcement", etc. and used it for decades to push palestinians out of their homes. The last violent events are a result of long oppression and netanjahu establishing a theocracy. Only focusing on extremes and make conclusions on such a basis is something dumb people do, dont you agree? Israel is clearly to blame, when you know a little more nuanced history and consider its long time dominant position in that conflict.
> international community has given such a morale boost to Hamas
By ignoring israels obvious long running now openly genocidal master plan, you are doing the same.
Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.
Sitting out of the process does absolutely nothing, whether its a protest vote, pretending that politics don't affect you, or just giving up completely. The people who get elected in those situations always 100% ignore you.
When people are in office that are at least willing to listen, you then make a lot of noise and put on pressure. You might get ignored mostly, since you are a minority voting block, but you can make incremental gains and even sometimes big wins.
I certainly found plenty of folks who were not only okay with the DNC's position but who were actively happy with Harris as the nominee.
Black people are, however, not a monolith. I'm quite aware of the differences between the many different sets of ideas (everything from hoteps to DNC-paid shills to people who genuinely liked the Harris platform to black anarchists/commiunists/ ex-panthers/ etc) and it's highly reductive to try to make the claims you're making here about "what black folks have learned".
As a person who genuinely believes actual leftist (communist and anarchist) politics are legitimate I found plenty of folks who abstained or tried to hold the DNS to change their policy.
But regardless of the "harm reduction strategies" or how legitimate you think having any semblance of political representation, the fact remains:
the democrats lost.
Unless you want to concede that "the party can only be failed, it cannot fail the people", the reality is that the party could have changed its policies and accommodated groups that abstained and perhaps won.
You can claim that the voters are just fools, but at the end of the day very few of us have any power at all over the DNC platform so it's simply bizarre to blame us for their horrible, provable failed choices.
What you’re arguing for is only single-round optimal, but multi-round suboptimal — much like defection in the Prisoners Dilemma is defeated by trust strategies the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Until you show how it’s multi-round optimal, you haven’t addressed their critique.
Right now it looks like you drained the baby with the bathwater.
My bigger question: Why would you make the foreign issues dominate your national issues?
But to answer the first, I’ve heard directly from party strategists that they look for people who vote, but not in a particular race. They can’t identify them directly, but a higher ballot submitted count than (eg) presidential vote count is a signal that they can gain voters in that area — which they follow up by surveying independents, etc to see what policy issues they’re concerned with.
The argument is that by not voting some rounds, you influence their platform in subsequent rounds. If you vote for them regardless, there’s no incentive to optimize their platform to address your concerns.
What you're advocating benefits the greater evil ten times as much over a 20-year timespan. They're absolutely loving you. The more Bidens, the more Harrises, the more Clintons, the better for them.
You know why China is doing so well? Because they still remember how to think in the long term.
Black citizens make the most progress by strategies built around embarrassing the powers that be. Those powers generally capitulate (as much as they ever were going to) after a period of tantrum-throwing, which is where we are now. Such politicians hate having to vote against the donor class's wishes, but they'll do it to get reelected (or they'll be primaried by candidates who will). Or, they'll lose. Those are the choices, which Kamala Harris unfortunately learned the hard way.
One other thing black folk have known for decades: nobody you can put into the White House or the legislature will be able to stop half the country from thinking of you as a n!gger. You don't vote based on that because Carter and Clinton and especially Obama and Biden have shown us that election-based social progression is a pipedream.
If I beg you to reconsider on a very serious issue that is in your power to change stance on, and you not only ignore me but laugh in my face, then why exactly do you still get my vote? Why exactly should I reward you for completely ignoring my protests?
Make sure to swap Gaza for your single issue - maybe LGBT rights, or abortion, or gun rights - and then seriously think about how you would deal with it.
The Democratic party has basically decided to lean on “but they’re worse” as a political platform while backsliding on multiple issues. They do this because Democrat voters lap that shit up, chant “vote blue no matter who” like members of a cult, and then cry out in astonishment when the Democrats in Congress and in the gov keep sliding towards the right.
Also, an addendum: before blaming abstainers and third-party voters, it might be good to ponder on why Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency over making any concessions whatsoever on Palestine. At best, it was a grave miscalculation borne out of hubris. At worst, it was an act of self-sabotage to ensure unconditional support for Israel. Pick your poison :)
Say centrist Dems, unless it’s Zohran Mamdani. They have learnt nothing. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/zohran-mamda...
1) threaten the international rules-based order, shattering the expectation of adherence to any number of human rights-centered protocols and representing crisis that can snowball into larger conflicts,
and 2) are often facilitated in part by police actions (civilian detainment, censorship, killings dressed up in lawful rules for the use of force, etc.), which threatens a general spillover of military action into the civilian/domestic status quo.
In other words, tolerance of genocide leads to a general shift towards war and despotism, even for people who aren't in the group targeted for genocide. Tolerance of evil builds the scaffolding for further subjugation.
Not only that, the current president literally promised everything to everyone - just to win! People are too naive (or too innocent) not to notice the lies.
Of course, we haven't adopted the other facet of Athenian democracy which is ostracization by voting.
And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
Non-sequitur much?
>And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
My party? Which party are you talking about? Don't be shy.
Just pointing out second order consequences.
As for you, what exactly are you trying to say? It's not clear to me what you hope to contribute to the discussion other than satisfying your imagined superiority to other Americans. Or is just those with an excess of melanin?
Genocide is cause for war and destruction of countries. And fortunately, Republicans made it convenient to destroy American society.
You see children being burnt alive by racist zealots with your tax dollars, and you CONTINUE to fund it? Yah that's a good way to end your society. The USA is no exception.
Well Europe was probably going to fell to the far-right anyway...
It does make me despair to have the two parties that together govern our country both be so committed to something so heinous. Can one really be a proud citizen of such a nation?
https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-mom...
I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
The neighbors who signed peace treaties (Egypt, Jordan) seem to be maintaining peace fine.
It's the ones who've refused to normalize relations since 1949 and keep launching rockets over the border at civilians who get hit back.
And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
How would “dumb” bombs be worse?
Syria killed 10,000s of civilians in just a few weeks using only dumb artillery to shell a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Hama_massacre
The American incendiary bombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 people in a single night of bombing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...
And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base. Remember all the rejection of the idea that Hamas HQ was in bunkers under the main hospital? Repeated denials that any such bunkers existed. Israel had a very simple response: we built the bunkers, we know they exist. If hospitals were acting as they should be they would be open territory--the IDF could simply walk in and look around. Yet every time it's been a big fight. And I remember a supposed "hospital" strike where they actually hit a tunnel--got the commander they were after and got secondaries. A bomb that simply explodes underground isn't going to cause secondaries, so clearly they hit a tunnel that supposedly did not exist.
Come on man.
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/05/12/j...
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
[3] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolste...
[4] https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian...
When Hamas won elections (both in west bank and gaza) and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
Last general palestinian elections in which hamas won was in 2006.
attempted coup by PLO was in 2007
you will know it, if you will know history.
> Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
quoting you "Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas".
A few corrections on this topic:
- there was/is no Gaza politics
- Elections were general elections in Palestinian Autonomy
- Both Israel and PA were against elections because they were afraid that Hamas will win but USA forced it because "democracy shall prevail and will resolve everything"
- Hamas won general elections in Palestinian Autonomy in 2006 and assembled government chaired by ismail haniyeh as PM
- USA trained Fatah to coup against legitimate Palestinian government
- Coup succeeded in west bank and failed in gaza in 2007
- During coup, Hamas killed, dragged behind bikes or threw from rooftops those that opposed it
- After coup, Hamas tortured into obedience or killed all opposition
just one example: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestin...
and on topic of how hospitals in gaza used, from same article: " Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital."
That's not exactly true, no matter which side you support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas#Isra...
Qatar started sending money to the Gaza Strip on a monthly basis in 2018. $15 million worth of cash-filled suitcases were transported into Gaza by the Qataris via Israeli territory. The payments commenced due to the 2017 decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA), an administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rival to Hamas, to cut government employee salaries in Gaza. At the time, the PA objected to the funds, which Hamas said was intended for both medical and governmental salary payments.
also, you probably weren't around back than, but there was international pressure on Israel to allow those money, because, quoting mainstream press, un, etc "hundreds of thousands of people will be hungry, there will be famine and collapse of all services in gaza that will lead to humanitarian disaster".
so, now, after Israel caved to international pressure to prevent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israel is blamed for propping up hamas.
Are you sure you want to hold voters directly accountable for an election that happened over a decade ago? If yes, then it's a pretty slippery slope to be on, esp if the same standard were to be applied to US voters.
Netanyahu and his ilk didn't like the awkward questions of why the terrorists were negotiating but they weren't. So they started propping up Hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel.
"They" started firing rockets, or Hamas? Hamas who is 30,000 of Gaza's 2.5M? Just when was that last election, again?
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
I agree with everything you said about Biden being practically better for Palestine, but this is nonsense. Israel would be a completely isolated state without US support. Even North Korea has China. The last completely isolated state in the world was South Africa whose apartheid ended as a result. It's not crazy to think Israelis might realize forcing people who have lived in the same country for generations to be stateless and voteless to preserve a "pure", "Jewish" state is not a worthwhile gamble if it costs them any connection to the outside world.
(It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.
If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.
It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
Like a political partys job is to get votes. An electorates job is to withhold votes to punish poor performance. The entity not doing their job here is the party.
The party is aware of the trade-offs. It goes ahead with its best estimation of what will win. Sometimes they can do everything right and still lose. One such scenario is when people would rather have the greater of two evils rather than be responsible for the lesser.
"We can't adopt [potentially winning strategy] because it might harm [definitely non-winning strategy]" is not a reasonable position. You don't have to adopt any specific alternative plan, but clinging to a non-working plan clearly isn't the right answer.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/support-for-israel-contin...
The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up?
If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote.
> The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
Want peace over there, make peace not bring problems for Israel. But so long as Iran keeps fanning the fires of war I see no way to accomplish that.
So really the only hope for peace is the elimination of the state of Israel and to return the land to Muslims.
Where is the study?
Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.
So the Democrats, who presumably wanted peace in the middle east, knew that Trump would be a disaster, and yet they still ignored voters concerns?
Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.
And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.
Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.
It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.
And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.
Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?
This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.
I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?
Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.
My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.
And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.
And that’s a bad analogy. AIPAC is literally buying out elected officials, while I am simply participating in democracy by choosing how to use my vote.
This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.
For, or from? this is an important distinction to make.
Though I was honestly surprised at how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump. Harris may be pro-Israel, but Trump is anti-almost everything else we stand for.
I'm honestly split between pro-Palestinian Arab-American Trump voters and soybean-farming Trump voters as the stupidest voting blocks of 2024. Not only are you helping put someone in power who is so obviously going to work against your interests. You've also removed yourself from the other party's table where your issue might have gained priority down the road.
Not for these groups. They wouldn’t rank something that benefits their interests because they’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against. That generally doesn’t work in democracies, which require engagement and compromise.
This doesn’t work unless you have the numbers to field your own candidate.
Voting 3rd party sends a message: "be more like this 3rd party if you want my vote".
Not voting also sends a message: "I wont show up and vote, so just ignore me".
It’s hard to say what Harris would have done, but it’s unlikely she would have greenlit the complete demolition of Gaza so she could build a resort.
Similarly, I doubt she would have forced places like UC Berkeley to send her lists of people critical of Israel (like you), then opened critical investigations against them.
Refusing to vote is the best way to ensure policies you object to the most are expanded.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saar-urges-250-...
250 us legislators had to fly there (probably paid by the taxpayers) a few days ago.
Sadly, looking at the US politics, whichever side you vote, israel wins.
You could easily fit that delegation into New Hampshire’s House of Representatives of 400 seats.
Meanwhile it’s more than double California’s total state legislature size of 120 seats.
It’s fun!
Imagine 250 representatives all going to a country with a similar population. It'd be mighty strange if 250 representatives from across the US went to Kyrgyzstan. Frankly, I'd find it strange if 250 went next door to Mexico all in the same year and that's a directly neighboring country that's actually relevant to US interests and the US's single biggest trade partner. Israel gets some sort of special treatment and it's really, really weird. It's treated with higher reverence than any state within US borders is.
When was the last time 250 representatives visited any of those countries?
(This is also an account that exclusively posts defending Israel)
I doubt that there are recorded numbers just for politicians, but these are all popular destinations for Americans in general. Now, if there's something else odd about this statistic other than just the number you want to point out, that's a different story.
Then you're electorally irrelevant. Particularly if your only civic (in)action is not voting.
If they cast a blank ballot, sure. Otherwise, betting on new turnout is a losing strategy. Particularly if you’re counting on that off cycle or in a primary.
There isn’t. Not across partisan lines.
There is to flip primaries. But those too lazy or stupid to vote don’t affect those.
Fun fact: If people like you would get off their asses on Election Day, Texas would have been a blue state for the last 15 years.
The GOP would be done, and we could meaningfully decide between the Bidens and Bernies of this world.
I learned a very uncomfortable—though valuable—lesson about humans that day.
Remember that 47 minutes of video Israel was screening for reporters but did not release? They've gotten permission from some of the families and have released part of it. You definitely see people being killed on camera.
And the really important part isn't the video itself, but that it's stuff that Hams people chose to post on social media. Something to be cheered, not a horror.
And, no, they didn't get permission from any of the other victims families to publish on that site.
So, the IDF literally has no direct confirmation of rape.
It's true that the casualties of the Israeli counter-offensive can only conclusively be tied to ~20-30 casualties, but for many casualties it's unknown who is responsible, and there is (inconclusive) evidence Israeli fire resulted in the burning of 77 vehicles, many of which were returning to Gaza with captives (or their bodies)
It seems unlikely to me there were fewer than 80 civilian casualties (out of 815) attributable to friendly fire, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that number is over 200.
Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/most-peop...
On a political or legal level for Israel it might have more implications though, that is impossible for them to ignore, but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries...just like Putin.
Lots of people will care, but it isn’t going to move a lot of opinions.
> Pew says only 52% percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of UN in 2024
Yes, but it says 57% do in 2025, the first positive change in support since 2022. [0]
But neither is that much more than the 50% that already think Israel is committing genocide [1], and the positions are probably significantly correlated, so this probably isn’t swaying many people that aren’t already convinced.
> On a political or legal level it might have more implications though but ICJ will focus on the leaders who can avoid visiting certain countries.
Always good to see assessments of international legal impacts from people who don’t know that the International Court of Justice deals exclusively with cases between states, and that the standing body that deals with individual offenses that are war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression is the International Criminal Court.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/05/united-na...
So what is your expert opinion then? What is the risk to the state of Israel itself if ICJ makes a case against them?
Informing people > admonishing them
Unfortunately not all nations are equal and many suffers because of that.
To actually solve big world problems it would take massive investments and sacrifice quality of life for many and increase taxes on rich. Obviously no one would agree. It's way beyond clicking "like" and "repost" buttons on social app or adding UTF-8 country flag to your name.
Now from watching the coverage of this war you can't help but come to the conclusion that there's an organised but invisible movement opposing the war. The various humanitarian bodies and news outlets like al jazeera and bbc all quote each other in a self reinforcing loop of anti israel talk. If it's not an organised conspiracy at least it's a very strong convergence of interests giving the impression of one.
Historically the main opposition to Israel comes from the Arabs with the European countries joining in with various levels of enthusiasm mainly for the pragmatic reason that the Arabs have all the oil.
The anti american block is also anti israel because that goes against US interests.
It's not surprising then that the UN would be completely taken over by anti israel groups. It's basic maths.
But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.
I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs. And their motivation without a question is genocidal anti semitism. They are just upset the Germans didn't finish off their job and they are taking everyone else along for the ride.
I'm not saying there can be no legitimate opposition to Israel, but it's my belief, backed up by a certain amount of historical evidence that most of the opposition from official sources has its roots in anti semitism.
That is not true. Political will to introduce sanctions is maxed out. And current US administration has even less interest in doing so than previous.
>>But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestinian, but that's just marketing.I think i've established fairly well it all comes back to the Arabs.
Funny enough, no Arab country wants to really help Palestinians, to open borders for refugees. To host palestinians who lost wars with Israel.
Virtually no mention to the far worse horrors Iran is perpetrating elsewhere.
It boggles my mind that militaries keep attempting despite decades of experience showing that damn near every single time it's been attempted, it's been an abject failure in its aims and very often entirely counterproductive.
FWIW the reason that Israeli troops are on the ground and not just razing the Strip from the air is to reduce risk to civilians.
If we are talking about propaganda machines, US/CIA are "pro-israel". Facebook/Google are "pro-israel". Russia/KGB are "pro-israel". India is "pro-israel". Mossad is "pro-israel".
Which "powerful forces" are on the same level but on the opposite side?
(1) "Hamas produces a lot of fake anti-Israel propaganda" -> (2) "All anti-Israel evidence is fake" -> (3)"Israel is not committing genocide".
You can't reach conclusion (2) from (1).
Him: "Those videos are demonstrably fake."
You: "Doesn't matter!"
Are you sure that's the right fallacy?
Him: "Here is some evidence that some videos have been faked" Me: "The fact that some have been faked doesn't mean there aren't real ones"
So yes, it's the right fallacy.
Will HN do something about the deranged genocidal Zionists brigading problem on this site? They really are trying to ban anti-Israeli voices in their attempt to normalize the continued existence of the state of Israel. At the very least ban Israeli IP addresses.
Here's what they flagged of mine:
To really hold them responsible, they have to be given war crimes trials at The Hague. At this point, just removing them from office is not enough. They really need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This includes anyone that voted to provide military aid to Israel as well as any propagandist that claims Hamas raped anyone on October 7 (of course never naming the names of any alleged rape victims). People like that have literally been given the death penalty at The Hague for promoting genocide before.
It really is too late to save any politicians from prosecution at this point. They are now fully complicit in the genocide, not just aware of it. And this UN report will further bolster any prosecution against them.
Palestinians who are not part of Hamas are third parties and when they are attacked, you can't tell them to ask Hamas to release hostages or do anything, because they have no more influence over Hamas than anybody else does.
Would note that not all Muslim Palestinians support Hamas, and to the degree they say they do, I wouldn't morally equivocate their actions with those who actually commit the atrocities (or refuse to surrender hostages).
Christian population is going down in Palestine, and up in Israel
In fact, so far as I know (I only know the Levant) there are no growing minorities in any Levant country, other than in Israel.
>In 2007, the year Hamas took over Gaza, the Gazan Christian population was at 3,000.[5][33] Israel's subsequent blockade of the territory accelerated the emigration of Christians, with many going to the West Bank, the United States, Canada, or elsewhere in the Arab world.[5]
I think they don't. I think it's as states, that they either emigrate to the West Bank or go far abroad.'
There are extreme efforts in Israel to push Christians out of certain neighbourhoods, for example, in Jerusalem, where people have been going after the Armenians.
It is a war crime.
Settlers in the West Bank openly murder Palestinians like animals, as well. The State of Israel is a violent terrorist state.
Occam's Razor indicates that it was a legitimate operation by Hamas and Israel underestimated their adversary.
https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-october-7-attack-an-assessment...
https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/guard-down-d...
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/05/nx-s1-5318591/israel-shin-bet...
That is such a shallow understanding of someone for whom the whole region is just a source of entertainment. While Hamas is an "Iranian proxy" in a similar way that Ukraine is an "American proxy" that doesn't mean that Hamas and Ukraine don't have agency - who, despite their reliance on outside help, have a righteous cause and will keep defending their lands with or without that help.
It's also ironic that you would describe it as "on a deeper level" when it's quite the opposite - it's shallow and misguided. Hamas is a Sunni militant group, while Iran is Shia. You clearly have no understanding whatsoever how these groups have historically fought each other - just look at how they have been fiercely fighting each other in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
So why would Iran help Hamas then? For Iran, attaching themselves to a righteous cause such as Palestine has been a very effective tool to whitewash Iran's image and present Iran as "Axis of Resistance" despite having caused much harm to the Sunni-Muslims in the region (e.g. Iran cooperated with America in destroying Iraq, Iran also helped Assad oppress the Syrians for decades). Thus, helping the Palestinian resistance gives the shady Iranian regime legitimacy and positive PR like no other cause in the world. (the average iranian may genuinely support Palestine, because they are mostly unaware of the meta-game being played by their own regime)
Why does Hamas accept help from Iran? This should be much easier to understand. Most of the Arab regimes are ruled by puppets who are subservient to America and have betrayed the resistance. One of the main reasons for October 7 was Saudi's MBS being close to normalizing with Israel and thus sealing Palestine's fate forever. This was a "now or never" moment so the resistance made clear that they mean business and that they won't let any normalization happen without a sovereign Palestinian state. Back to Iran - so when you're in a dire situation, you can't be picky with your allies. Iran helps Hamas because it's a great tool to whitewash the Iranian image and Hamas gets weapons in return. October 7 however was most certainly not in Iran's interest in any way. Despite Iran's harsh language towards America, they very much tried to cozy up and seek "forgiveness" because of the crushing sanctions. Iran may play dirty games like Israel does, but Hamas doesn't - for the resistance it's quite literally about survival and resisting zionist-colonialism.
[Some more examples. In 2012, relations between Iran and Hamas soured after Hamas refused to support Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally in the Syrian civil war. This led to Iran taking punitive measures against Hamas.
- As a financial punishment, Iran cut its funding to Hamas. This financial support had been estimated at around $23 million per month and the cut caused a significant financial crisis for Hamas in Gaza.
- Along with financial cuts, Iran also ceased military cooperation, which ended the supply of weapons to Hamas from Tehran.
- They began to rebuild their relationship around three years later, though tensions remained (see links below)
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/hamas-ditches-assad-ba...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/hamas-iran-reb...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palest... ]
I also must protest the notion that I would see the whole tragedy as entertainment. I don’t.
It's clear that you have a very surface level understanding of the entire history and I highly recommend that you first study the whole history extensively[0] before you cast judgement. While you're at it, make sure to study other revolts and its gory details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner's_Rebellion
There are several aspects of this which are rather fascinating:
1) The response of Oct 7 to almost 100 years of brutal colonization, ethnic-cleansing and mass-murder of Palestinians since the Nakba and the Tantura-massascre [1] was only a tiny fraction of the pain the colonizer suffered compared to the crimes committed against Palestinians. Regardless, it has been treated as pretty much the worst thing ever, while it factually was only a tiny fraction of the the pain compared to the crimes committed against Palestinians for almost a century! "Nothing justifies October 7, but October 7 somehow justifies everything" - The resistance has proven the ungodly amount of bias through which the world judged them and they forced the world to re-calibrate their unjust scales.
2) You're talking about their methods, but you haven't even studied their history comprehensively, all that they have tried, what misery Israel has inflicted upon them and their families for decades. An enemy that's unparalleled in its deviousness - invites you to peace talks, but is only interested in trying to murder your diplomats. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/israels-strike...]. How would you deal with such ruthless colonizers? You judge the resistance by the 1 thing that finally forced the world to properly pay attention. Say what you want, but it was Oct 7 which forced the world to properly study the history of Palestine. For almost a century the Palestinians only received fake sympathy while much of the world uncritically accepted and even regurgitated Zionist lies knowingly or unknowingly. The outrage that was shown on Oct 7 was never ever shown when Palestinians were the victims, so this was a key moment when such biased individuals were confronted with massive evidence that woke them up to their selective outrage and their unjust judgement.
3) It was the severity of Oct 7 that humiliated the colonizer who had always seen themselves as superior to the "kushim" of Palestine ("The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.). It was that humiliation that the colonizer felt - they couldn't even bear to suffer a fraction of a fraction of the pain they inflicted upon the Palestinians for almost a century, such that they whipped themselves into a genocidal-frenzy and dropped their diplomatic hasbara mask. The resistance unmasked the colonizer, made them drop their masks - made the world understand who the Zionists really are and who they have always been. ["Leibowitz said that the State of Israel and Zionism had become more sacred than Jewish humanist values and described Israeli conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories as "Judeo-Nazi" in nature while warning of the dehumanizing effect of the occupation on the victims and the oppressors." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshayahu_Leibowitz ]. And even after all that, much of the world still stubbornly refused to believe their own eyes while observing the evil that Zionists livestreamed so proudly. Only after Zionists consistently and persistently insisted on being so openly and proudly evil for almost 2 years straight is when people started to believe what they were witnessing:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...
4) Go through Palestine's history, enlighten the people how your methods would have been so much less "despicable and stupid" in resisting colonizers who have been absolutely unscrupulous and devious at every step: https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir... . Colonizers who have murdered your ancestors and established an apartheid ethno-state [2][3] on the mass-graves of your women and children, while raving on your stolen land - within your field of vision from the open-air prison in which they have locked you up.
[0] "The Masterplan for the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" - https://youtu.be/C3cnRcfp_us?si=hsKzuI6T1wljAAW0
[1] YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNtrUjUNkJw or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0B8KSBXJX
[2][3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-... https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
How would the hostage return the land? How would Gazan tell Hamas to stop?
Both answers are they can't
Edit: I see you edited your comment to blame the hostages for being in the music festival. So, you normalize blaming regular people who have nothing to do with the war; the very thing you said we shouldn't do.
No, only those that fall within the definition contained in Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).
Just taking the US example, this is the same public who were gullible enough to think that Donald and Kamala were good candidates. Of course their opinion is swayed by that much propaganda.
It’s clear who has the most power in this situation and it’s not the “2 billion”. It’s the “420 million” US + Israeli citizens who make up the military coalition that is currently decimating a population of < 2 million. You want to talk about numbers? Let’s talk numbers. If there’s such a power imbalance why is the ratio of Gaza’s killed to Israelis 100:1 in this “war”?
I wonder also though, how Israel will react. Is this anything new for them?
- our enemies are Hamas sympathisers
- our enemies are secretly Hamas members OR
- it's antisemitism
2. The overwhelming majority of Israelis knows and does not care about Palestinian civilian suffering, they do not even try to hide it.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-i...
https://www.dw.com/en/middle-east-israel-to-get-ready-for-is...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-admits-israel-is-eco...
pick whichever source you respect the most
then what about the rest of Israel?
What's to say Israel's next plans aren't for Greater Israel next? Stealing parts of the Egyptian Sinai, Lebanon, Syria (which they already have done) and Jordan? And then Saudi Arabia and Iraq?
You would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks the IDF is commiting war crimes in Gaza, let alone a genocide.
There is great skepticism towards international NGOs that make these accusations, especially the U.N., owing to past pro-Palestinian bias.
Also, do Israelis really believe that with the extremely omnipresent intelligence apparatus that Israel enjoys, especially on the technological front, their country was not able to predict the October 7th attacks? Or did Netanyahu, personally on the verge of being convicted criminally, found a route out by starting a long-drawn out campaign where his hawkish approach would bolster his image? This entire affair has had all the stench of Putin's Chechnya escapade.
There is widespread bias against Israel, for the simple reason that Israel does not let press on the ground. Not even conservative, pro-Israel voices were allowed to report with boots on the ground.
And now Israel went a step further, by attacking a sovereign third-party nation that is trying to give a voice to the other un-sovereign side. Granted, they are heavily biased, but they are (were) also Israel's thread to communicate with Hamas leadership - and Israel just bombs their soil? Don't Israelis think on those terms?
But having followed a number of conflicts, I don’t see Israel conducting itself in a way that’s uniquely bad.
What makes Gaza different is the opponent: one committed to total war, willing to sacrifice civilians in order to manufacture outrage and turn Western opinion against Israel.
Documented examples include:
- Shooting at civilians who follow evacuation routes
- Sending children with bombs in their backpacks
- Denying civilians access to bomb shelters
- Storing weapons caches and launching rockets from civilian areas
What would be the philosophy here? I've seen holdings from wars being held and released, and Golan Heights
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
I think after that I can't imagine the question, "will this impact israel?" makes any sense. They're deliberately perpetrating a genocide. It's real. It's the deliberate and systematic murder of two million people. I dont see the sense in asking: will the murderers care?
If Israel wanted to kill two million, they could've done it already.
It seemingly doesn't matter how accurate Israel tried to be, they call genocide either way.
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
You may want to distance yourself from a defense of israel. This is not what you think it is; within a year a very large percentage of gazans will be dead, a very significant majority of all their children. They are starving now with water withheld. You can kill a large number very quickly if you withhold water.
That's where we are. Israel's actions have becoming increasingly genocidal as they have ratched up the "genocidal escalation ladder" with impunity. They had been afraid that someone would step in, but none have.
There's now no way of reversing at least 20% of the population dying, it's really just a question of whether they can finish them off, at least as a peoples with a need and claim to that land. If they can be whittled down to a small fraction of their original population, they can then be ethnically cleansed.
I'd imagine that has been the plan now for at least a year, or at least, most of this one.
I appreciate that you're making a prediction. We can check back in a year and see the population levels compared to today.
Even according to Hamas only 200 died out of starvation, and that number is disputed as well.
This is all Hamas propaganda that everyone believes.
PG wields some amount of power in SV, but YC and others are still inextricably tied to what's happening. Thiel was just in Israel with elad gil, rabois, alex karp, joe lonsdale. It's just too much to list.
I guess my point is when does recognition turn into action.
I’m not sure which is worse. In one case ignoring it and pretending your morality is in tact, on the other being crass but knowing full well no one will stop this until it’s too late (as planned).
Do we really need a “Human Lives Matter” movement? Are our leaders space lizards? How much blackmail has the Israeli intelligence community accumulated? How much blackmail has it generated by clandestinely helping foreign politicians?
There is a reason the world is silent, and it’s rotten.
I think it was the recent double tap missile strike of the hospital workers, journalist and first-responders that did it.
Barely though, moving to the states at age 4, but I guess he came back a decade ago. Not sure it warrants national pride unless his parents raised him on a strict diet of tea, scones and the BBC. I hope he turns up at YC having gained his birthright, a nice Dorset burr, "alreet moi luvlees, wart ideals be goin on ere?"
I had assumed moving to the UK was a Madonna-esque escape from getting pitched every 5 minutes while trying to do family stuff in SV.
Anyway, I appreciate seeing his humanity on this, and in particular that he's not down the same hole of moral bankruptcy as Zuck, Thiel, Musk, and others in the SV ruling class.
One man cannot fix everything.
Dear PG (I'm sure you don't read HN, but this is yet another echo),
As I said on X, your own platform (YCombinator) is still full of hateful bigots who would censor/downvote even the mildest form of speaking against the genocide. Proof: this comment being downvoted. Downvoting as a mechanism is akin to censorship. It's being abused.
i think it's worth stating simply and unequivocally that denying or defending a genocide that is the culmination of a century of colonialism and apartheid is Bad
The genocide itself is simple enough; the thousands of years of conflict leading to the genocide are not. Anyone who believes they can unpick all that history to come to a neat conclusion about who are the 'goodies' and who are the 'baddies' is a fool.
My only interest in this conflict is in keeping it as far away from myself, my kith and my kin as possible.
What's happening in Gaza is different because now we have cell phones and the Internet, and AI isn't quite good enough yet to fake a genocide.
They definitely knew that Jews were being rounded up and sent to camps for slave labor in horrid and dangerous conditions that would kill many of them.
When anybody has doubts about how fucked up world and humans are, I just direct them into this medium-term conflict, facts are easy enough to find.
We should consider the possibility that the UN report does in fact cover that point. To find out we should look at the original source: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
There are many occurrences of "intent" and "destroy" in that document. It includes both the definition you mentioned, and analysis of how it applies in Gaza.
To answer the point that a lot of the data comes from Hamas, the other major data source is the Israeli military (e.g. the "COGAT" link somebody posted above with pictures of grocery stores overflowing with produce) so it's surely equally suspect. If third parties were given free access to do their own investigations, that would be useful, to be sure. The party blocking access (and blocking humanitarian aid) is the Israeli military.
It isn't something. It is the primary thing here. For a professional such an omission can be only deliberate. The radio interview would be heard by millions of people while the report would be read by a much-much-much smaller number of people. Such an omission in the whole context of the other things - like not calling out genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS on Oct 7, 2023 - can lead to only one conclusion.
today on NPR the head of that UN agency which produced that conclusion of genocide in Gaza failed to give proper definition of genocide which was the very first question by the interviewer. The part she omitted? She omited "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,"
From your link to NPR's transcript of the interview:
CHANG: So first, can you just define for us what is genocide, according to the U.N. Genocide Convention?
PILLAY: Firstly, it's accepted by all that genocide is a monstrous crime, an extremely serious crime, which is the killing and destruction of a people in whole or in part. That's why we say it has a specific overarching intent.
The phrasing is a bit clumsy (e.g. "that's why we say") but the idea that Pillay is trying to sneakily hide something here is rather bizarre. It seems very likely that "specific overarching intent" is meant to refer to the specific clause you highlighted. Obviously a live radio interview is going to be a bit less polished than the final written conclusions of a two-year study; that hardly implies malice.
You're kidding. "Top UN legal investigator" on genocide is clumsy with genocide definition. And not on some detail. She is "clumsy" on the main thing delineating genocide from the other crimes otherwise similar.
That isn't clumsy. That is absolutely incorrect. It isn't "why ... intent" . The intent in genocide is the "why". She obviously knows it, and thus does it deliberately. There is no other explanation here.
That's not what they said the UN investigator was clumsy with. They said she was clumsy with how she orally delivered their justification for why they think it fits the definition of genocide.
> Firstly, it's accepted by all that genocide is a monstrous crime, an extremely serious crime, which is the killing and destruction of a people in whole or in part.
The UN investigator is saying that the genocide as it's been perpetrated leaves no doubt that it is intentional by observing of the scale and horror of the destruction. "That's why [they] say it has a specific overarching intent."
Please stop polluting the conversation with ChatGPT slop.
Why is a former Israeli general saying that deaths are at least 200,000?[0] And Israel military intelligence saying 80% of death are civilians? Are they also Hamas?
Netanyahu is on record prior to October 7th bragging about how Israel aided Hamas, a designated terror organization by their book, in order to weaken the PLO. You have no legs to stand on.
You're arguing in bad faith or being willfully ignorant because you're not adressing what has been talked about ad nauseum by the other side.
[0] https://portside.org/2025-09-13/ex-idf-chief-confirms-gaza-c...
HAMAS perpetrated the genocide of Jewish people, and now its propaganda is used as the basis to declare genocide supposedly perpetrated by the Jewish state while fighting against HAMAS. You don't see anything strange here?
And another strange thing - why UN didn't call out the genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS?
I'd love to get data from an unbiased source, but how do you do that in this situation? Ministry of Health can't be trusted, Israeli sources can't be trusted, independent journalists don't have reasonable access and are regularly killed while reporting.
> And another strange thing - why UN didn't call out the genocide of Jewish people by HAMAS?
I would think priority needs to go to activity that is ongoing. This report may help bring an end to the ongoing activity, but the Hamas attacks are not ongoing.
This report was specificially not on that topic, but mentioned that it may qualify as genocide. The ICC did issue an arrest warrant for a Hamas commander and there was widespread condemnation of the attacks. Further specific reporting would likely benefit from cooperation of Israeli sources, but Israel doesn't like to cooperate with the UN.
Just look at death tolls maybe? October 7, 1200 people. While despicable, nowhere near the effort Israel is putting in, right?
Aside from the affect that the Israeli government has pretty much said they want to get all the Palestinians out of Gaza and are actively working towards that.
No one is justifying October 7.
Genocide requires intent and deeds. I think it's reasonable to consider the attacks of October 2023 to be genocide. The intent is clear from their founding statements, and the deeds likely qualify as well.
However, I also think it's reasonable to consider the ongoing war in Gaza to be genocide as well. The statements from officials waver but are often genocidal in nature, and the destruction and loss of life is too.
It's not a contest, both genocides are bad. But using one to justify the other doesn't make the second one better.
Sure, but they're not. Israel however? I think there is compelling evidence that it is being given the chance and taking the world up on it.
Again, no one is justifying what Hamas did.
Do you need for me to spell out how that would be genocide for the Jews, or are you at least familiar enough with the Middle East for that to be clear?
Be there no mistake, even if Hamas wins that does not mean peace. Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies are waiting to pour into the holy land, those Shiites will do the Sunni Hamas exactly what Hamas had done to the Jews. And Hamas knows this.
I still don't understand how you can be worried about one side committing genocide if you're okay with the other side doing it.
Crime of genocide has nothing to do with numbers.
It sounds though that for you the numbers do matter, and that the 1200 deaths isn't enough for you. What number is enough for you?
>No one is justifying October 7.
You haven't heard any pro-Palestinian protests and their various supporters?
>Aside from the affect that the Israeli government has pretty much said they want to get all the Palestinians out of Gaza and are actively working towards that.
Moving refugees from one camp to another may be warranted to solve serious security issues (Jordan for example kicked out Palestinians from Jordan back then when the Palestinians attacked Jordan which was hosting them at the time - a lot of similarities to how Palestinians attacked Israel. Nobody argued against expelling Palestinians from Jordan back then). Or do you mean that Gaza is the Motherland of those living there, and they aren't refugees anymore?
It does, not in absolute sense put in percentages. Also, besides weapons of mass destruction you cannot commit genocide in a day on a population this big. It's the persistence that does it.
No one ever called 9/11 genocide either right?
> You haven't heard any pro-Palestinian protests and their various supporters?
I mean in this thread, obviously. You want to own all of the stuff coming out of ben gvir and smotrich? Because if you do, we can settle the genocide discussion right here.
> Moving refugees from one camp to another may be warranted to solve serious security issues
So as soon as you've invaded an area and created the refugees you can push them wherever you want?
We're not talking about Israel pushing refugees out of their country.
And finally, where are they supposed to go, and how?
In 2007, so 18 years ago?
It's quite hard to get information out when you're actively trying to make that to be the case. But I understand why they wouldn't let im journalists. That would completely undermine the narrative.
Also, why are you so opposed to taking something from one side of the conflict when you are YOURSELF quoting the Israeli government...
Please go take a civics class
Your tweet is from a unit of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
//Yet this is what the grocery stores look like, as of two weeks ago
Israel has systematically obstructed food entering Gaza, in the easily-confirmed words of Daniela Weiss again “THE ARABS WILL MOVE, DON'T GIVE THEM FOOD.”
In terms of qualifying a Famine, all three criteria have been met long-since.
Starvation: At least 1 in 5 households face an extreme shortage in their consumption of food
Malnutrition: Roughly 1 in 3 children or more are acutely malnourished
Mortality: At least 2 in every 10,000 people are dying daily because of outright starvation or the combination of malnutrition and disease
"BBC -How Israel's policies created famine in Gaza" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg4p90z1kxo
The figure _compiled and published by Israel_ confirms it. Between March and June, Israel allowed just 56k tonnes of food to enter the territory; less than a quarter of Gaza’s minimum needs for that period.
Even if every bag of UN flour had been collected and handed out, and the GHF had developed safe systems for equitable distribution, starvation was inevitable. Palestinians did not have enough to eat.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/the-mathematic...
Oh yes and the closed-doors, Jewish-only property-expos in America at the moment offering properties in illegally occupied Palestinian territories are just one more piece of that biased media I suppose.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/1mmilhz/property...
Really looking forward to 'Stealing Sunset' - where Indya Moore, Rain Dove and Heydon Prowse posed as real estate influencers to gain access to the Israeli realtors, hoteliers and developers making a killing from real estate and tourism on Palestinian land.
They included Tomer Mor Yosef, VP of Kass Group, who developed the ‘Magic Kass’ mall, hotel and amusement park in the West Bank); Ze’ev Epshtein, owner of Harey Zahav, who infamously photoshopped blueprints for beach front villas on the bombed out ruins of Gaza; and Shelly Levine, one of Israel’s leading realtors for overseas purchasers in illegal West Bank settlements.
https://operationsunbird.com/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stealing-sunset#/
There is certainly hunger. It is an active war zone. But your numbers are grossly exaggerated.
When you mention the relatively small amount food entering between March and June, you neglect to mention the 6 months supply of food that was provided in January. That seems to be an important factor.
Also of note - there have been warnings of imminent mass starvation in Gaza since October 2023, and none of those warnings came about until recently, at which point Israel increased the amount of food entering Gaza.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05ed5rgld3o
The IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) report issued on August 22, 2025, confirmed Famine (IPC Phase 5) in Gaza Governorate, marking the first official famine declaration in the Middle East. The report, based on a special snapshot for the period of July-September 2025, projected famine to expand to other governorates and highlighted catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, particularly among children
IPC Report Confirms Famine in Gaza: Joint Statement by UN Security Council 14 Members https://www.un.org/unispal/document/joint-press-statement-se...
As you're a green account, I won't be responding to any more of your ghoulish bad-faith engagements.
// The United Nations chief has described the famine confirmed in Gaza City and its surrounding areas as a "failure of humanity".
Antonio Gutteres said the situation was a "man-made disaster" after a UN-backed body, which identifies hunger levels around the world, raised its food insecurity status in parts of the territory to Phase 5 - the highest and most severe.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) says more than half a million people across Gaza are facing "catastrophic" conditions characterised by "starvation, destitution and death".
The report was labelled an "outright lie" by Israel, which has denied there is starvation in the territory.//
I see lots of blame on Isreal, but to me it seems Isreal was provoked into this fight, and the other countries bordering Gaza are unwilling to take refugees or help in any meaningful way. It is odd to me that Isreal is taking the blame for actions clearly endorsed by anyone that has to deal with Gazans. Is it because they are the ones taking action?
Even the most simplest of research would give you the answer to that question. The main escape/aid route from Egypt to Gaza is the Rafah crossing. This is now de-facto controlled by Israel.
Israel requires that aid from Egypt go through security checks, customs clearances, etc. There have already been dozens of reported instances where food from Egypt has gotten spoiled waiting for clearance. It was sensational news earlier, but folks have mostly given up reporting on this now. It is clear that Israel wants Palestine to suffer.
> It is odd to me that Isreal is taking the blame for actions clearly endorsed by anyone that has to deal with Gazans.
Pardon me, but I didn't know that Egypt and other neighbours were bombing Gaza. Can you give me relevant citations ? I mean the nation-state bombing Gaza and controlling its access to food would logically take the blame for massive civilian casualties and famine right ? Or does your supreme logic lead to another interpretation ? Kindly explain your chain of reasoning for enlightenment.
> other countries bordering Gaza are unwilling to take refugees
My apologies, but this is unforgivable ignorance. Please be aware that Egypt has taken >100k Palestinian refugees since 2023. I don't have the recent figures for Jordan, but they have taken in millions of Palestinian refugees over the last couple of decades.
Aid delivery via Rafah is hampered by the fact that the Rafah crossing is designed as an entry point for people, not goods, making it difficult for large convoys to pass through.
The Rafah crossing has been repeatedly bombed, causing disruptions in aid - not to mention deliberate bombing attacks as Israel forces Palestinians to flee via Rafah, and then bombs the crossing.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-bomb-rafah-cros...
The war has prompted Israel to conduct more stringent checks on aid as it seeks to prevent the entry of what it calls “dual-use equipment,” products it says are “intended for civilian use but liable to serve military needs for the strengthening of Hamas.”
Trucks carrying aid must pass through three layers of inspection before they can enter the enclave, Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general, has said.
This is further compounded by Israel's draconian 'dual-use' inspections which create intentional bottlenecks at the Rafah crossing, supposedly prevent the entry of what it calls “dual-use equipment,” products it says are “intended for civilian use but liable to serve military needs for the strengthening of Hamas.”
Among items deemed “dual use” by Israel are power generators, crutches, field hospital kits, inflatable water tanks, wooden boxes of children’s toys and, “perhaps most depressingly, 600 oxygen tanks.”
https://www.wfp.org/stories/hungers-border-why-aid-trucks-ta...
Provocation or any other citable action may explain, but in no way excuses, the war crime of collective punishment. No one other than Zionists have endorsed war crimes as the way to 'deal with Gazans'.
Israel are 'taking the blame' because they are committing war crimes with impunity, including the murder and subsequent coverup of journalists and aid workers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/10/how-palestin...
As for the unwillingness to take refugees, that is simply facilitating the endgame of Israel - the depopulation of Palestine and contested territories.
Genocide is defined by intent, and the European Jews have intended to remove or kill all Palestinians since they began the Zionist project last century, culminating in their decision to start a war by attacking and invading Palestine in 1947/1948, with Palestine being occupied by a foreign invasion force ever since.
Israelis are guilty of genocide.
Quoting an AI, rather than specific sources of information, isn't helpful and certainly should not be used to support an argument.
This happened all the time during COVID. Facts about its transmission and impact, would be immediately dismissed depending on if it went with the story we already accepted.
Everyone has already accepted a story of “Israel good”, or “Israel bad”, and online forums hardly change anyone’s mind.
I agree it's hard to talk about anti-establishment issues on corporate owned media, but I feel like HN isn't really putting a thumb on the scale. As my proof, you assumed the comment was being downvoted, but it shows no sign of that (isn't particularly low, not faded at all). Unpopular opinions will obviously do poorly in a popularity contest, but I feel the tide is shifting among those informed on the issues.
It has been ranging between -1 to 3, so a mix of votes and downvotes. It is 0 as of the time of this reply.
EDIT: -1 now right after I pressed submit.
Downvoting on HN doesn’t go lower than -4. If it’s used as a method of censorship, and you care about internet points, then you practically have to post nothing else useful to make it work.
So these methods are definitely used to suppress topics or opinions, for better or worse. But when it comes to genocide it's obvious that those committing it also have the power to abuse every mechanism available to suppress information and discussions condemning it.
Humian philosophy acknowledges that logic is driven by conviction and justified post hoc. Meaning: if my logic is driven by conviction, so is yours. All logic is, in the end.
It would not. What's happening in Gaza is the end result of decades of systematic policy.
If Israel ever intended to some day have peace, they would recognize that Palestine is a country (like the majority of the countries in the world does).
October 7th was a valid reaction to people violently stealing your land and killing your families. The Palestinians had even tried a peaceful March of Return only to have the IDF snipe over a thousand people.
Israel is not a legitimate state, and never has been.
Well the Arab states collectively stole land 5 times the size of Israel from the Mizrahi Jews they ethnically cleansed (who now make up a majority of Israeli Jews)
So by your logic the Mizrahi Jews are entitled to enact October 7 style killings on the Arab states until they pay reparations for the land they stole.
If the Arab states think the Palestinians deserve reparations for stolen land, then obviously the Mizrahi Jews deserve multiples of those reparations.
If the Arab states think they can avoid paying reparations for the land they stole just by taking Israel by force, well they tried that several times and failed already.
Numerous Israeli government officials have said publicly that the current war is not going to end until Palestinians no longer live in Gaza.
I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.
"Anti-BDS laws are legislation that retaliate against those that engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. With regard to the Arab–Israeli conflict, many supporters of the State of Israel have often advocated or implemented anti-BDS laws, which effectively seek to retaliate against people and organizations engaged in boycotts of Israel-affiliated entities."
From Wikipedia. Also: "Not to be confused with Anti-BDSM laws."
- Early Soviet support to undermine British Imperialism
- Balfour Declaration from Britain vs. Ottomans
- Nuclear tech from France vs. Nasser and anti-colonialism
- Military/Nuclear from Apartheid South Africa vs. shared pariah status
- Hegemonic power from the US vs. every unaligned country including Cold War, OPEC, Arab Nationalism, Islamism
The more recent metastasising of support into a political-religous-racial belief-system is even more troubling than the apocalyptic machinations of great powers because pure ideology departs from reason itself and is untethered to any care for the consequences.
There's obviously a lot more going on from a social/religious perspective, but I'm prone to thinking of large-scale shifts and trends in terms of economic incentives.
Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?
https://idsb.tmgrup.com.tr/ly/uploads/images/2024/07/28/thum...
Have you see the strange photos of all US politicians with yamakas near this wall in Israel as if they're pledging allegiance to something?
It's humiliating
Through a socially viral "no net new tax" promise, once Norquist secured pledges from party leaders, essentially all federal elected Republicans had to pledge as well. They were otherwise threatened with losing endorsement from Norquist and faced being ostracized and primaried. The leaders themselves were then caught in the net and none felt like they could break.
ATR influence has waned in the face of MAGA's more populist fiscal liberalism, but that was pretty much just one guy.
Extend that singular goal to a network with a narrow and aligned interest, and it can be very effectively maintained with intelligent and shifting messaging and reputation management. Consider how people like Loomer and Raichik that have emerged, not through established power brokers, but organically through social media platforms, and the significant influence they possess even in the White House.
They have power by being able to expose western leaders for any number of hypocrisies.
https://nordicdefencereview.com/u-s-tops-arms-trade-while-al...
What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.
If you read history and understand that Jews are persecuted and murdered in every country that is not Israel, what are they supposed to do?
Should we blame the Ottoman Empire for not industrializing earlier and losing the technology race to Europe and collapsing? After all, if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t collapsed at the end of WW I, Palestine would likely still be a Muslim territory.
That’s how far back you have to go to find a good starting point to explain how the conflict got to the point it’s at now.
Its not just funding and religious indoctrination. The very, very serious question that nobody seems to have the courage to ask, is this: where are Israels nukes?
The answer to that question might provide some insight into why things are so supplicant in certain halls of power ...
The UN declaration was recognition of reality on the ground. And was, btw, rejected by the Arab parties and doesn't carry the force of international law. Israel declared its independence irregardless of the resolution the following year.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
In any case, go look at the malaria maps and desert areas. Notice how they match up with the areas allocated to Jews. The Jews may have gotten allocated slightly more land, but it was not fertile or desirable land.
Holocaust was not the reason for the plan for a Jewish national home in historic Israel, Arab persecution of Jews in the region was.
> Israel was created as a pretty bad solution to displaced Jews post-WWII
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...
This is a huge leverage.
I don't believe for a second that the common jews people want to influence other countries or do anythind "bad". But at the same time can believe that the current government of israel, that has some extremist parties inside, can try to influence foreign policy in many ways, potentially even extreme ways.
“Never believe that antisemites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antisemite has the right to play. They even like to play with discourse, for by giving ridiculous reasons they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutor. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
I'm not contraddicting anything you said, but at the same time I just want to point out that picking always "one side" without evaluating the facts each time is a dangerous position.
This population has been unfairly persecuted for a long time and it has been unfairly accused of many things, but this doesn't make what IDF is doing any more humane
The current genocide is to blame on the US as much as on Israel.
Why does this one country have such unwavering support? Why is the current president for example not trying to save some money by just not giving it to them?
Because it holds so much power over the government of the United States, and thereby benefits from the power the United States has over the world.
Some of the gist of what he talks about:
Just as there is an 'underworld', there is also a corresponding and related 'overworld'. Essentially organised crime, corporations, and security services cooperating in nefarious ways (often usurping - though not always violently - the power of states).
It's arguable that Israel is particularly interested and involved in this 'overworld'. See the early history of the CIA, FBI, Meyer Lansky and the mob, Epstein, the reach and effectiveness of Mossad relative to other similar organisations, etc.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I believe that most significant western leaders have probably been compromised in some way by 'overworld' influences. Look at what happens to 'the wrong type of candidate' that gets too close to power. Jeremy Corban was thoroughly and dishonestly scandalised by a campaign instigated and supported by Israeli interests. Why? The complete bandwagon type behaviour of mainstream British press of the left and right in that campaign is very reminiscent of the way recent mainstream media coverage reports on Gaza - it looks coordinated and in unison.
Of course, I'm probably wrong. Just trying to make sense of the madness I see around me.
TLDR; My theory is that Israel has corrupted our media and politicians through a nexus of nefarious actors that Aaron Good refers to as the 'overworld'.
Undeclared and un-identified nukes.
Israel has been an amazing success for Western security.
“Some form of” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, to the point of being dishonest propaganda. E.g., California is counted as one of those states based on AB 2844 of 2016. Which, to be fair, started out [0] as an actual anti-BDS bill (targeting state contracting only, but still an anti-BDS bill.) But the form that actually passed and became law does nothing that actually impacts BDS; it requires that state contractors with contracts of over $100,000 certify under penalty of perjury that (1) they are in compliance with California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, and that (2) any policy they have against a “sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States of America”, explicitly including but not limited to Israel, is not applied in a way which discriminates in violation of either the Unruh Civil Rights Act or the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
It is not, in any meaningful sense, an anti-BDS law.
[0] Well, “started out” isn’t really true, either, since it was introduced as a technical change the an environmental health law replacing "Department of Health Services” with “Department of Public Health” in one section of law, reflecting a reorganization that had occurred subsequent to the law passing, went through a “gut and amend” switch to become a bill that would add new sampling requirements for drinking water, then went through another “gut and amend” to become an anti-BDS bill focussed on public contracting. But then it went through a number of more regular amendments which stripped out all the anti-BDS parts—both the operative anti-BDS language and the proposed legislative findings and declarations of purpose at the opening, replacing both the operative provisionsn and the findings and declaration portions with anti-discrimination rather than anti-BDS provisions.
From an HNer I'd also expect the understanding that yes, old accounts does give less protections, trivially from an information theory perspective.
There was an alliance in 2020 between Israel and UAE United Arab Emirates. No need to say that it’s not the most promising alliance anymore.
Other countries that were neutral on Israel see their arabian population utterly hate Israel so they have to adapt and behave consequently.
They manage to unite the whole Arab front against them when they should have played on their division.
This is really a bad plan on long term. Despite what trump is saying, Iran nuclear weapon is very close. They failed on that matter too although there was a real opportunity with the agreement during Obama.
I don’t see a bright future for Israel in these conditions, all the weapons in the world can’t defeat hate from 450 millions Arabians.
Beside, people don’t want Israel military to fail, they want it to stop killing 80% civilians and 50% women and children. That’s completely different.
If a policy of de-escalation can be honored, you can lay the groundwork for a medium/long term solution that respects all sovereign parties.
(1) Stop of all armed offensives.
(2) Complete dismantling of genocidal and corrupt government. Netanyahu and his gang in front of international courts, and then afterwards additionally in front of an Israeli court.
(3) Partial disarming of Israel, to restore a balance in the region, and keeping them from attacking more countries. Defensive weapons they may all keep, maybe even get more, but it really needs to be defensive stuff, for example to intercept missiles/rockets. Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is needed more in Ukraine right now, which should take priority over Israeli needs.
(4) Organization of elections. Israel needs to get back from authoritarianism to functioning democracy. This might be done with international help. Possibly reforms, that strengthen courts, so that a second Netanyahu is unlikely to happen again.
(5) Long running rebuilding projects in at least Gaza, if not more countries, financed by Israel.
(6) Probably some international peacekeeping will be needed. This should not only include personnel from western countries. Must be from countries not directly involved and not from the US, or some EU countries, that supplied weapons used for the genocide.
(7) Negotiations are on again, this time with a new government, and mostly about how Israel thinks to aim for a peaceful future, in which it gives back illegally annexed territories, including, of course, illegal settlements in the west bank. This also includes all the illegally taken or occupied territory since founding, back to internationally recognized borders.
That's mostly the Israeli side of things. Of course Hamas will also have to make concessions. For example there could also be disarming of Hamas, where this is the price to pay for release of prisoners and a portion of the illegally occupied territories by Israel. Hamas shouldn't be helpless, but also shouldn't be able to launch new significant offensives.
There are many things, that can be done, and they are not difficult to see. They are difficult to execute in the current climate, where the powerful country has an authoritarian leadership, that is unwilling to compromise.
What does de-escalation look like in Gaza? Allowing Hamas to regroup and re-arm, so they can repeat October 7 as they publicly promised to do?
And supposing you had a rabid dog you couldn’t put down, do you really think harassing it (October 7) would really be the best course of action?
Hmmmm
Eye for an eye, and the whole world will be blind. That's the path Israel is following.
This kind of missing the forest for the trees is unthinkably anti-Semitic.
But you can tell who’s anti-Semitic by they way are attracted like moths to a light bulb to any story that has some connection (regardless of how distant that connection is) to Jews or Israel to get on a soapbox about how bad Israel is. And when confronted with accusations of their anti-Semitism, they rarely deny it. Instead, like you, they try to turn it around on the accuser.
It’s similar to the way you can tell who’s simply angry at his wife over a recent spat, and who’s a misogynist.
And you're name-calling because you're trying to normalize the existence of an occupation force in foreign lands.
Not everyone agrees that Israel has a right to exist. If you believe European Jews have a right to kill Palestinian children to steal their land to establish their mediterranean resort home they call Israel, then you need to explain that, instead of just name-calling.
Tell us WHY you believe European Jews have a right to kill Palestinian children to steal their land in order to establish the state of Israel.
At this point you might as well assume everyone is antisemitic, but its still your job to get them on your side.
While there is a place for that kind of comment in certain kinds of conversations, many people come to Hacker News to engage in curious and enlightening conversation instead of emotional echo chambers present elsewhere on the Internet.
By contrast, check out this sub thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45259553#45273473
I upvoted a number of comments there with opposing viewpoints because I appreciated that they made me think about things in a deeper way than I had previously, while avoiding anger or insults.
The Israeli government doesn't have to. They let settlers take care of that for them without any repercussions.
Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathematical certainty in the coming months. A significant portion of the population, especially the most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses—will perish even if direct hostilities were to cease. This is the direct and inevitable consequence of the "conditions of life" that have been imposed.
Permanent displacement and demographic change: For the remaining population, survival inside a Gaza that has been rendered uninhabitable will become a practical impossibility. The complete lack of housing, clean water, food, healthcare, and economic activity will create immense and unbearable pressure for civilians to flee the land in order to survive. This outcome aligns directly with the legal definitions of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, as identified by human rights organizations. It is also the logical endpoint of a strategy that involves mass evacuation orders followed by the total destruction of the evacuated areas, and it serves as a necessary precondition for post-war plans that require an "emptied out" territory for foreign-led redevelopment.
The military campaign, therefore, should not be viewed merely as a precursor to a post-war settlement. Rather, it is actively creating the physical and demographic preconditions for a specific type of post-war reality—one that precludes the existence of a viable, self-governing Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. The destruction is not an unfortunate obstacle to be overcome during reconstruction; it appears to be the first and most critical phase of a reconstruction model that requires a tabula rasa. This connects the seemingly separate phases of "war" and "post-war," revealing them as a continuous process. The objective is not simply to defeat a military opponent, but to physically and demographically re-engineer the Gaza Strip to make it amenable to a future state that serves external interests and permanently prevents Palestinian sovereignty. The evidence strongly suggests that the intended outcome of the current strategy is a Gaza Strip largely, if not entirely, devoid of its Palestinian population.
Some basic observations:
28% of children under five are actively malnourished.
IPC Phase 5 famine is officially confirmed in Gaza. 100% of the population is facing crisis level food insecurity.
Food distribution is being limited by the IDF and administered violently by US military contractors. https://youtu.be/uKpkZNAFwkc?si=4K3XeQmxbxF23tGO
The economy is completely dismantled.
63% of all buildings (including homes) have being destroyed. https://youtube.com/shorts/GLTurLL6lB0?si=AywZxmGTjhNa6zQv
90% of the population is displaced.
94% of hospitals are destroyed. The only remaining hospital is Nasser. https://youtu.be/mTqSq1xokeM?si=QAczyYx19jCbg3H5
Two weeks ago, journalists were targeted in an attack at Nasser hospital. Journalists are being targeted to scare them away and prevent what’s occurring from being shown to the world. https://youtu.be/xAK1w9r2J54?si=-ZvG-55KBKNZbqt9
Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed?
War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.
Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should break the hearts of everyone who dreamed that the international community could hold each other legally accountable. Indeed, the US would rather sanction individuals at the ICJ than acknowledge any sort of legitimacy—even as our own politicians accuse Russia of engaging in "war crimes". I have no doubt that they are, in fact, I think that the evidence is quite damning. But the double standard is striking, as is the difference between the footage visible on social media and what is acknowledged when you turn on the TV or open the paper.
this is never going to happen. there is just no practical enforcement mechanism. laws and police works within a sovereign country because the state has the monopoly on violence, this is not true on the international stage. no country will go into war to enforce an ICC/ICJ conviction.
Since the mid 90s the world has proven to turn their head on the other side or pick good/bad narratives out of mere convenience.
It started with the Yugoslavian wars, it absolutely exploded after 9/11 when US could straight up lie about non existing WMD and drag 10 of their allies to fight Iraq "for reasons". It confirmed itself in a countless number of conflicts nobody cared about in Africa, Middle East, Asia.
I don't think recognition as a State would really change anything. If at least one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council will veto everything that comes up, the UN won't effectively intervene in the situation. Military intervention in such a case is unlikely, unless at least one permanent member is willing to join an intervention coalition. Looking at conflicts the US has been involved in, it usually lines up around the lines with US maybe with their usual friends vs Locals or Locals and Russia and friends. The only one I found where the pattern was when France started sending arms to Nicaragua while the US was supporting the other side [1]. Unless Russia or China wants to support the Palestinians militarily, or the US decides not to no longer support Israel militarily, there's not much chance of outside intervention here.
Given the outside countries can't effectively intervene, recognizing the state of Palestine at least sends a message, that maybe hopefully influences the US?
30 years ago, conditions for peace and the start of a newly recognized state seemed better, yes. But the situation hasn't resolved itself by being left as-is either.
Japan and Germany had it 'easy' because their defeat was so brutal, and their de-radicalization was so thorough.
Israel's real crime was being too lenient after the 6 days war, exposing themselves and radicalized Palestinians to the violence that's lasted to this day.
There was a huge Allied reconstruction effort in Japan (and Germany, and a lot of Europe, and elsewhere). I very much doubt there would be something similar for Palestine. Or Syria. Or, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would be an effort which spent a huge amount of money for zero effect outside the US compound.
Because the vast majority of the Japanese people barely faced any kind of obstacles in the same way Palestinians are facing. Yes, they had food shortages and their wooden homes were bombed constantly to oblivion, and they suffered a couple of nuclear blasts, but that was because their history lessons teach their WW2 as something in which they were the aggressor (with Pearl Harbor, not the invasions of China and Korea). In Palestine's case, it will take much longer to wipe out that resentment. Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
> Besides, Palestinians aren't the "radicals" here.
A luxury belief that's only possible to hold because Israel is militarily dominant to the point that the radical views prevalent in Palestinian culture cannot be acted out. The Israelis know this luxury belief is factually false, that's why they are the way they are.
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2025/gaza-bombing-eq...
> Gaza bombing ‘equivalent to six Hiroshimas’
But of course I'm talking to someone who pretends to believe you can carpet bomb an entire city of 2 million people relentlessly, cut off food and water, and kill fewer than 60,000 civilians.
If the radicalism is the product of decades of force, how could the further use of force possibly result in the reduction of radicalism?
Between them, the rest have only local influence.
Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?
Edit: here's one from a few months ago, which covers the principles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43738815.
Re how we approach political topics on HN in general: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Re how we deal with Major Ongoing Topics, i.e. topics where there are a ton of articles and submissions over time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re how we approach turning off flags: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re the perception that "HN has been getting more political lately" (spoiler: it hasn't - though it does fluctuate): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
If you or anyone will check out some of those links and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.
Is the Isreal/Gaza debate not political, and not mainstream news? How does a story like this not directly violate those guidelines?
Furthermore, the guidelines state that stories should be what "good hackers" find "intellectually satisfying". A political debate thread about Isreal is what "good hackers" would find intellectually satisfying?
I just can not understand how a story such as this in any way remotely meets the established, official guidelines for what belongs here.
Considering these threads also, universally, just devolve in political flamewars / hate spreading. There's nothing constructive here. There's no debate. There's no opposing ideas/opinions allowed.
That leaves open the question of which stories to treat as on topic, but the links in my GP comment go into detail about how we handle that.
I'm not saying we always make the correct call about individual stories. There will never be general agreement about that, since every reader has a different set of things they care about. But I hope we can at least make the principles clear, as well as the fact that they haven't changed.
They owe us nothing. Except perhaps sticking to their past commitments. You can always ask for a refund of your membership fee as last resort. HN is not a journalistic endeavour.
> I say this since I have never seen a pro-Israel post on this platform
Seems irrelevant as the OP is actually not anti-Isreal.
> but as an Israeli, I want to feel safe on my news platform
Having to see criticism of the actions of the government and military of the nation you live in when they step over ethical lines is not a threat to your safety. It's healthy.
Legal judgements often make it to the front page of HN as they are as independent as we manage as humans. I don't feel having this post slanders Israel. It would be more interesting to understand what part of the UN investigation you disagree with.
That doesn't seem true to me. I'm seeing lots of opinions I don't agree with.
When the equation changes vis-a-vis Israel's credibility, this entire Jenga structure has to be reevaluated. It's not satisfying to think about, but it is intellectually prudent and remains important regardless of how civil the response ends up being.
If the topics and responses pertained to such a discussion, then that would be one thing. However, it seems like that is not what is being discussed in this topic nor comments section.
I think that reference to "TV news" is outdated. Media has changed and there isn't even a clear division between what a media org puts on TV vs on the web.
And this sub-topic in particular (genocide ruling) isn't really getting a ton of mainstream news coverage -- many news orgs are deliberately distancing themselves from proper coverage. The story may exist on news sites, but it's not being surfaced.
Personally, one aspect I always enjoyed about this site was how it was often an escape for me from the endless bombardments of political discourse that is constantly being shown/recommend to me on other platforms. I do understand the importance of the nature of these types of discussions, but I agree with you, I am not certain much honest debate is being had here.
In the n number of threads like this, I would be surprised if many leave with any of their opinions changed. All too often do people comment to soothe their own knee-jerk reactions rather than to facilitate understanding or intellectually challenge one another.
To phrase it a bit differently, does this kind of articles create a positive or negative engagement for HN?
You might want to check out the part of the HN FAQ which explains that the moderators are editorially independent: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
In any case, I don't think Paul or Garry are interfering with the algorithm or moderation here.
I'll give you another one you might like. The root of the word Shahid in Arabic is "witness". This is another term that Western media likes to use incorrectly.
There’s no doubt that this is then used as a weapon against people like Mamdani for having used phrases such as “globalize the intifada.” But that’s going to be an uphill battle to “correct”, because you’re dealing with people who are already biased, are often unaware of their bias, and are interpreting things in a way that fits that bias.
Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.
When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.
One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.
Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.
If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.
Show me the evidence. You can find Arabic speaking influencers eating out in Gaza on social media. You can find security camera images of full supermarkets. The facts on the ground don’t match the narrative.
Far from withholding food, most of the food coming into Gaza now is via the Israel government, which is doing an end run around Hamas to get food to the people. Because Hamas, not the IDF, was shooting up aid trucks and taking all the food, both for their own use and to sell at inflated prices.
Hamas via MENA media companies is pushing the narrative of a famine because controlling the food supply is a primary means of extracting money from the population to further the war. Get Americans and Europeans to donate to starving Gazans, to fill the coffers of Hamas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of water, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.
This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas.
There's a very large list of actions that can only be targeted against the civilian population, and have aimed-at and realised a genocide.
Sending food wherever, leads to it being captured by Hamas / local militias (for lack of a better word) so you have to distribute where you can protect it.
But of course where you have soldiers is where you'll take fire.
Maybe she cared about your own people, you wouldn't engage in places where humanitarian aid was being distributed
You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills
Does it at least know who it is raping?
The commission has previously found Israel to be guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including extermination, torture, rape, sexual violence and other inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, forcible transfer, persecution based on gender and starvation as a method of warfare.
> You think Navi Pillay, who was the President on the Rwanda Tribunal (for genocide), is less competent than you & would sign off on mere "circular references"?
> Does it at least know who it is raping?
Which means that at least 83% are.
There is nothing "legitimate" about it.
The head of this alleged body is a staunch anti-Israel activist who is not taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navi_Pillay#Israel-Gaza_confli...
"On 25 July 2014, the United States Congress published a letter addressed to Pillay by over 100 members in which the signatories asserted that the Human Rights Council "cannot be taken seriously as a human rights organisation" over their handling of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict "
Wait, you know people who were killed by Hamas? You can’t even pretend to be impartial.
The point is that, as someone with limited stakes in this war and limited exposure to its history until recently, unbiased sources have been hard to come by. The entire definition of genocide has been politicised. That isn't a criticism of anyone doing it--language is a powerful tool, and it's fair game to try and bend definitions to one's advantage. But all that makes piercing the veil on whether this is the horribleness of war being selectively cited, or a selectively horrible war, tough.
This report cuts through that. The evidence is compelling, albeit less primary than I'd have hoped. The writing is clear and impartial. (Though again, a lot of secondary sourcing.) It doesn't seek to answer who is at fault for what is, essentially, an intractable multigenerational conflict (even before we involve proxies). It just seeks to simply answer a question, and in my opinion, having now skimmed (but not deeply contemplated) it, it does.
The balance of evidence suggests Israel is prosecuting a genocide against the people of Palestine. That creates legitimacy for escalating a regional conflict (one among money, I may add, and nowhere close to the deadliest) into an international peacekeeping operation.
Unfortunately, all of this rests on a system of international law that basically all the great powers of this generation (China, then Russia, and now America and India) have undermined.
> international peacekeeping operation
Or just like those international peacekeepers who filmed Hezbollah breach our border, kill soldiers, abduct others? And then when this was discovered, refused to share the unedited video with Israel?
We don't trust the UN. So which international peace keepers do you propose?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t know! But the point of peacekeepers is the belligerents lose their votes.
Courts have ruled it is. The world has ruled it is. You can skirm all you want, in 6 months you'll say you always thought it was a genocide. Mark my words.
I also read what they published so far.
Bizarrely, it matches what the <checks notes> head of the ICJ said.
Who would have thought?
Edit0:Rulings are not only the final decision, feel free to chat with a lawyer
What more do you need? Indeed, there hasn't been a final ruling yet. What a gotcha!
Edit1: Also, please understand that the distinction you are pointing to is just saying : 1. Palestinians seemingly are being genocided 2. Israel has a responsibility not to ebact acts of genocide on the palestinians 3. Israel keeps failing at this goal and has even has it's leaders express genocidal intent.
Which is to say everything BUT the final ruling - that Israel has committed genocide - as final ruling can't be arrived to expeditedly even in the face of overwhelming evidence
And if you think the UN rapporteur is too biased to do their job correctly, why do you care what the UN does?
No, no more than someone who predicts a market crash every day is proven right the one time they nail it. The quality and objectivity of the analysis matters. Not just the conclusion.
Odd you can't reconcile that both parties can be correct
> she analysed evidence and arrived to the same conclusion as the ruling you qre recognizing today.
If an event has the potential to be that, it's the near-peer land war in Europe.
The current Israel/Gaza conflict is a blip that is mildly different in degree than the same thing that has happened every decade or so since Israel was created.
The October 7th attacks were way worse than Hamas attacks that came before in recent history. The response was way worse than what has happened before in recent history.
And so both sides feel fully justified with their courses of action, because of what the other side did to them. That is the part that is so much not unique.
The Gaza war will be a footnote to the actual war happening in Europe. When the terrorist attack of October 7 happened, my first sentiment was that Putin will be ecstatic that half of the world's attention will be shifted away from his crimes. A conspiracy minded person might think this was not an accident.
"This rebuttal examines the central defects of the UN report (the “Report”) issued by the Commission of Inquiry (the “Commission”). It shows why the evidence presented cannot sustain a finding of genocide under international law. A summary of its main deficiencies are as follows:
1. Failure to prove dolus specialis: The specific intent to destroy a protected group is the central and extremely high bar in any genocide case. The Commission’s claim of genocidal intent fails on this threshold alone, relying on tortured parsing of statements, selective quotations, and conjecture rather than unambiguous evidence.
2. Erasure of Hamas as a belligerent: The report never acknowledges that the IDF is engaged in combat with an estimated 30,000-strong Hamas force in Gaza as well as thousands of fighters from other militant groups. A reader would come away believing the war has the IDF deployed against only women and children, with Hamas erased from the narrative. The Commission makes no attempt to analyze the war itself, because in its alternative version of reality, there is none.
3. Silence on Hamas’s military infrastructure: There is no mention of Hamas’s 17-year military buildup in Gaza, including its vast tunnel network, booby-trapped buildings, and massive arms buildup. By ignoring this reality, the report strips the conflict of its military context and recasts lawful military targets as evidence of genocide.
4. Erasure of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure: The Commission ignores Hamas’s openly acknowledged human shield strategy,[2] including its use of mosques, schools, residential buildings, and hospitals to conceal tunnels and weapons. Instead, damage to these sites is consistently portrayed as deliberate targeting of civilians by Israel.
5. No recognition of the hostage crisis: The report omits the fact that Hamas took Israeli hostages and continues to hold them, starve them,[3] and rape them.[4] This omission is consistent with the broader erasure of Hamas as an active actor in Gaza, removing essential context from the Commission’s narrative.
6. Reliance on Hamas-supplied fatality data: Despite Hamas’s long record of exaggerating civilian deaths and its status as a US and EU-designated terrorist organization, its figures are treated as fact while IDF data on combatants killed is ignored.
7. Civilian deaths distorted as evidence of genocide: The report presents civilian casualties as prima facie proof of genocidal intent rather than as tragic and unavoidable consequences of urban warfare, exacerbated by Hamas’s human shield strategy. The Report cites numerous incidents where civilians were killed as intentional and targeted acts by Israel without evidence.
8. Normal wartime consequences treated as crimes: Regular and expected wartime impacts on civilians, such as mental health impacts, difficulty accessing medical care and displacement, are depicted as evidence of genocide rather than inevitable outcomes of urban conflict.
9. Urban devastation portrayed as extermination: Large-scale damage is cited as proof of genocide, ignoring that urban combat inherently produces extensive destruction, particularly when military forces are embedded within civilian areas.
The Commission also ignores the obvious: the suffering of Gazans could be significantly reduced or even ended if Hamas released all hostages and relinquished control of Gaza. The idea that the population experiencing the claimed genocide has the power to stop it but refuses to is unprecedented in the history of actual genocides and exposes a deliberate blind spot in the Report. This omission mirrors the Commission’s broader erasure of Hamas as an active party in the conflict, a group with agency and responsibility, leaving readers with the false impression that all suffering in Gaza is solely Israel’s responsibility."
https://unwatch.org/un-watch-rebuttal-legal-analysis-of-pill...
This one is sufficient for me. And I think classifying it as genocide is a big mistake if your goal is protecting the civilians in Gaza. An easily proven wrong accusation overshadows the fact Israel could have taken things more slowly an carefully. Which I think (with little experience or knowledge) they could since the power difference is huge between the sides.
A friend was telling me that Gaza has been starving for for 2 years so we looked back on the headlines and they said "brink of starvation" - so like - being on the brink for 2 years means you weren't on the brink?
Lastly Israel is clearly less restrained now than I've ever seen it. But like they were accused of genocide forever. So those accusations were false but now it's really happening? But if they had been restrained all along then they are the moral party?
I am not trying to persuade for a side it's just funny how so many posters here are like "ohhh we have the real and moral information here" when it's obvious that's not even available.
Or say another way - if "they are evil" whether they do X or opposite of X, whoever is setting up that story for you is full of shit.
But all the reporting does not add up.
Half the pictures Hamas shows of starving children aren't legitimate. They're children with medical conditions, not in Gaza, or from a different conflict.
The number of people starving to death each day are in the single or low double digits. If what was said was really true, there would be tens of thousands of people dead by now.
And I don't believe a single thing Israel says either. How many tunnels were actually found under hospitals? Definitely at least one. Definitely not all of them.
A little truth makes all the lies more believable.
But that is exactly the claim. What is your argument here? You say there cannot be a genocide because genocide is too awful?
This seems like a strong claim. Please back it up.
But don't let that stop you. Feel free to make a nuanced and well-researched counterargument why the UN report is wrong.
Accusations of "one-sidedness" for everything that doesn't follow the Israeli narrative of the conflict has been a standard defense for decades, last employed against the two-states UN resolution.
That's why I find (naive) insistence on seeing "both sides" problematic in this conflict. By all means, do see both sides, but see them with their respective amounts of power and historical context.
It was so obvious that you were trying to carefully push Zionist propaganda from the very start, but here you went from 0 to 100% hasbara real quick. This isn't 1990, you won't get away with this kind of blatant Zionist revisionism; there are about 10000+ academic articles and videos now that teach the history in painful detail. So give it a rest with your lazy propaganda.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
>How can you try to swat away historical facts
The cognitive dissonance of Zionists needs to be studied in Universities across the world. You are straight up lying into people's faces and in the same breath projecting your own behavior on others "trying to 'swat away historical facts'". It's truly astonishing.
I have no issue discussing this situation, in fact that was the whole point of my original statement. Which is that most people seem too emotionally attached to this situation to the point where they can't even have a proper discussion without trying to talk down to me about a position I don't even hold.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101003080945/http://unispal.un...
I already quoted that exact part and even referenced the academic work which elaborated on it in detail. It was also not a "random" master thesis, it is academic work that is cited by the United States Government.
>Correct me if I'm wrong
"Entertain my Zionist revisionism". I've heard variations of your hasbara for 2 decades. It's insane that you still think that you can just lie in people's faces when everybody can just fact check you in a jiffy. You obviously don't care about the facts, that's why you persist in trying to deceive people with Zionist revisionism, but for others who happen to stumble upon this convo here some elaboration that concisely debunks these Zionist talking points:
- "The Conflict Based on a Lie" https://youtu.be/dy56Q1a0Flc - "The Masterplan for the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" https://youtu.be/C3cnRcfp_us
For anyone who is more interested in a comprehensive study of the history, Zachary Foster is a jewish historian whose research can be found at palestinenexus.com of which he is the founder of.
But if you insist on starting with the Palestinian civil war then you will soon find that a lot of Palestinians were expelled from their lands and never granted the right of return. It was not merely the partition, but the fact the international human rights granted the right of return for Palestinians illegally expelled, but this international human rights was promptly denied to Palestinians and has been till this day. There is no tit for tat here, as Zionists have not been illegally displaced and Zionists don’t have their rights of return denied to them.
>There is no tit for tat here, as Zionists have not been illegally displaced and Zionists don’t have their rights of return denied to them.
The claim Zionists make here is that the land was originally Jewish land to begin with. History does support this claim as the Roman Empire took over Judaea in the early first century and then subsequently exterminated and enslaved the Jews in the region renaming the area to Syria Palaestina about 100 years later.
Starting before the colonization project started and finding reasons or justifications for the colonization is only ever gonna be an exercise in justifying oppression. The victims of colonization had nothing to do with that. Conflicts start when the indigenous population resists colonial oppression.
Let's correct the record. First, you claim Zionism was just a reaction to antisemitism, not the cause of the conflict. This is a deliberate misrepresentation. Political Zionism was a confident and proactive colonial project, growing from the exact same soil of European nationalism and race theory as antisemitism itself. The early Zionist leadership were not "traumatized victims" at all. They were confident Europeans, operating in the same intellectual environment as the "Scramble for Africa" who saw themselves as a superior people with the right to colonize. This wasn't some abstract theory, but their explicit worldview. As one of their key leaders, Chaim Weizmann noted: "The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.
This colonial mindset is also why your second claim, that the focus on Palestine was just a pragmatic choice that only became central after Balfour, is historical nonsense. The proof is again the Zionist leadership's rejection of the Uganda offer. If the goal was simply to find a safe haven for worried Jews, a vast territory in Africa would have been the logical answer. They refused it because Zionism was never just about safety. It was a nationalist colonial project with a specific, predetermined target, and their argument was about claiming the right to do what other Europeans were doing i.e. conquering and colonizing a land inhabited by people they had already, in their own words, dismissed as having "no value."
Finally, and most cynically, you absurdly present the ancient and laughable claim to "Judea" as if it were a legitimate historical justification. You're framing a modern political maneuver as some kind of ancient "right". The secular, European, and atheist founders of Zionism did not even believe in the religious basis of this claim at all. They saw the biblical narrative noting more as useful myth-making tools to justify their colonialism. They weaponized these ancient stories, which they themselves viewed as superstition, for the very modern purpose of justifying the dispossession of the native population and legitimizing their colonial project. It was a calculated propaganda strategy, not a reclamation of faith. A faith in which they didn't even believe in, but which they were cynically weaponizing.
If Hamas wants to end the war (or supposed genocide) then they can release the hostages with no additional demands. The fact that the supposed genocide victims choose to continue the war is quite the sign that this is not genocide, in what other situation would a victim choose to continue a war that is a genocide against his people?
No one here is defending Hamas
> The victims are the 60k+ dead people (including children), stop confusing things, you know this.
The way war usually works, is the side that feels it has something to loose, sues for peace by making concessions. However the international backing of Hamas has ensured them that they have nothing to loose, and everything to gain, by attacking the Jewish state.
Also, most of the people in Gaza are not Hamas members and are regular civilians. What Natanyahu is doing is basically analog to the following:
A killer take a member of your family as a hostage (Hamas in this case is the killer) so you decide to kill a member of their family every hour until they release your beloved one. Do you think that this is acceptable or are you trying to make it acceptable?
Could be that I just missed it, but seems odd.
- BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8641wv0n4go
- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/16/israel-committ...
- NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/16/g-s1-89014/israel-gaza-genoci...
Israel cannot continue without the ongoing support of the US.
good luck
I always worry the US will do it again.
PCRF (children relief fund): https://www.pcrf.net/
Heal Palestine (meals and patients): https://www.healpalestine.org/
PRCS (first responders): https://x.com/PalestineRCS/status/1721839906605998526
The Sameer Project (camps & tents): https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject
---
Afaik, these organizations barely bring in £50m collectively. For context, FIDF, the largest non-governmental American donor to the Israeli military, has gift £1.5bn+ in the past decade (£500m+ in the last 3 years).
" 251. The Commission’s analysis in this report relates solely to the determination of genocide under the Genocide Convention as it relates to the responsibility of the State of Israel both for the failure to prevent genocide, for committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 and for the failure to punish genocide. The Commission also notes that, while its analysis is limited to the Palestinians specifically in Gaza during the period since 7 October 2023, it nevertheless raises the serious concern that the specific intent to destroy the Palestinians as a whole has extended to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, that is, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, based on Israeli authorities’ and Israeli security forces’ actions therein, and to the period before 7 October 2023. The events in Gaza since 7 October 2023 have not occurred in isolation, as the Commission has noted. They were preceded by decades of unlawful occupation and repression under an ideology requiring the removal of the Palestinian population from their lands and its replacement.
252. The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
253. On incitement to genocide, the Commission concludes that Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide and that Israeli authorities have failed to take action against them to punish this incitement. The Commission has not fully assessed statements by other Israeli political and military leaders, including Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich, and considers that they too should be assessed to determine whether they constitute incitement to commit genocide.
254. On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition, the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
Even if you take these statements, and add everything that happened on the ground for the last two years, comparing it to the Armenian, Rawandian or Jewish genocides is a joke of epic proportions. It's a very minor war even in Middle Eastern terms, compared to the recent Syrian or Yemen civil wars or the American involvement in Iraq
When these clauses apply against civilian populations, they are war crimes or crimes against Humanity, or both.
Hospitals and journalists were deliberately bombed. That’s a war crime and the closest example of a western military doing it is Russia in Ukraine.
Emergency shelters and food distribution centres were deliberately targeted. That’s a war crime and again, there is no western equivalent.
Then there’s the pogroms on the West Bank.
When your argument is that a country’s behaviour is not as bad as ethnically cleansing in some African countries or WWII, your argument is really desperate.
That's incorrect, at best you may have been quoting an organization that had abducted babies for political advantage and you assume won't lie for a political advantage, even though it was caught lying before. However, I don't believe even they are claiming that, as they are intentionally not publishing militant death statistics to inflate the notion of civilian deaths
US and west are all about some perceived genocide, while inside Israel, half want to surrender to Hamas or whoever because hostages, and the other half had had enough (of almost 80-year war) and just want to be done with it, and the third half wants to study Tora and do nothing, but be fed by the other two halves.
This is ridiculous and very bloody.
Can we please just be rational?
No one side has the right to commit genocide against the other. At some point, there will have to be a two state solution.
The current Israeli government is indeed genocidal. Cabinet ministers have referred to the Palestinian people as a whole (not just Hamas) as an enemy and the IDF is carrying out the genocide.
This also means that by proxy the US is funding the military of a genocidal regime.
Just as providing Hamas with weapons is a terrible idea, giving them to Israel in its current state is an equally terrible idea.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
I am not one to talk as an Israeli Jew who clearly disagrees with the entire bullshit premise of the article… but either way, the story is only saying things that people have been (incorrectly) claiming for months
In your opinion, is there a neutral organization in the world that could define whether the legal definition of genocide is being met or not?
Not only that but whenever a thread like this appears, tomhow and I end up spending all day on it, which is by far the worst part of the job. I don't mean to complain—that would be grotesque, given the suffering that's going on—but rather to say how much easier it would be if HN did not discuss this or similar topics at all.
But I don't think that's an option. It wouldn't be consistent with the values or the mandate of this site as I understand them, and it's our duty to try to be as true to those as we can. I want to be able to look back and say we did our best at that, even though the outcomes are this bad. I tried to explain this in a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44403787, though I don't know how successfully.
The upshot is that there's no good option and no way out. Maybe experiencing that is the best we can do to honor what's happening. It feels congruent with the situation being discussed, albeit in the trivial form that everything on an internet forum takes.
Firstly, have you ever thought about the fact that one, posts like this alienate Israelis from one of the few remaining tech news sources which made them feel safe by excluding politics? (If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, in 2023, I realised that I could no longer read The Verge due to pervasive and horrendous misinformation about Israel on a tech news site)
Secondly, given the havoc that posts like this cause and that it appears to not meet any of the rules for posts on Hacker News (clearly not tech or programming related and quite frankly, no more interesting to any person in tech than any other person), why do you allow this post to still exist?
My conspiratorial mind wonders if it’s done on purpose as a fire drill, but a kind of The Office sitcom fire drill where someone lights an actual fire. (That’s an example of irresponsible behaviour, but I don’t actual think an HN/Israel fire drill is equivalently irresponsible.)
Those tower blocks in Gaza that were felled on the anniversary of 9/11 were not taken down with machetes. We have got AI assisted targeting going on, with all of your favourite cloud service providers delivering value to their shareholders thanks to sales to the IDF.
The corporation that once had 'don't be evil' as their mission statement are suckling on the IDF teat along with Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco.
An argument could be made that it is an "interesting new phenomenon", but the post is most likely to result in tedious flamewars regardless and so should probably be killed.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I think it's an impossible problem from an ethics perspective.
You're free to Google the countless cases of Israel deliberately killing children, but I doubt you wanna get out of your echo chamber.
Pretending otherwise is just blatant propaganda.
The two situations have absolutely nothing in common.
Edit: can the non-Hamas surrender and avoid getting killed? They can't and the situations on the ground aren't that different. A Warzaw and Gazan survivor would have a lot in common.
Edit: I found your answer to that question:
https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45268680&goto=threads%...
Paraphrased, the children are part of the culture and may die. There are no civilians.
> what should a non-Hamas member in Gaza do right now to avoid getting bombed
But you are correct - the responsibility to end the war and prevent further civilian casualties lies squarely with Hamas. Pressure them to return the hostages, don't pressure Israel to capitulate to terrorists.
But it seems you are getting your way, we will find out exactly how many dead are acceptable to mr Bibi.
Most of HN is American. It's on the other side of the world. It has about as much actual effect on the typical American as the just as bad events currently unfolding in Sudan.
So you _are_ living under a rock, okay.
Two teams of murderous rapists are fighting one another, everyone has their favorite team, and if someone thinks someone else supports a different team they say "how can you support those murderous rapists! Just look what they did to the innocent people on my side!"
It's an opportunity for people to be tribal about something that, for the overwhelming majority of people, will never affect them the slightest bit.
That...is in fact exactly the topic of conversation? I can't help you with this one.
They haven't changed since the last time I checked. They still suck, and they're still irrelevant to most of the world except the tiny fraction that live in the Levant.
Clicking hide and seeing something disappear forever is actively cathartic. I don’t do it often but it’s very helpful when I do. Give a try?
And I feel like less than 1% of front page topics are political, and you're certainly not obliged to open them... yet somehow this made it "goodbye" for you?
Best of luck.
How come factual genocide is "political news"?
"It's not wrong when we're doing it" is an old, old failing of human empathy and sense of justice.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44738555 (July 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44362828 (June 2025)
Bottom-of-the-barrel antisemitism ought to be the easiest thing in the world to avoid, regardless of your views or feelings about the ongoing situation. In any case, there's no place for it on Hacker News—never has been and never will.
---- original comment: ----
rimunroe is correct, you've repeated a classic antisemitic trope. We ban accounts that post like that, so please don't post like that again.
It's entirely possible, and ought to be entirely easy, to make any substantive point you have without any of that.
IIRC theres a plan among arab states that would call for a DMZ between Israel and Palestine, theres just no way that Israel would accept their troops manning that DMZ. So it would have to be the US or UN troops manning that border and they dont want to.
>It's one of the most dehumanising things ever. "stay here and become a casualty statistic because that is the most convenient way to fulfill our political agenda."
IIRC Israel tried to pay them to leave and they wouldnt. They want to be returned to their land. Your complaint here is basically "Why wont they let Israel finish their ethnic cleansing" which is more disgusting than your implication.
> Also don't deal with israel consistently in bad faith and then expect them and their supporters to care about what you think.
I have never once, in my entire life discussing this issue, going back 10-15 years seen an Israeli government supporter argue anything in good faith. Would love to see that change.
>Just for the record i think this report is a fabrication and for those that say plenty of Israelis oppose what's going on in gaza i will respond that none of them can suggest any better alternative.
Is there a single alternative to "We will slowly take their land" that Israel would accept? They certainly wouldnt be happy if a neighbor absorbed palestine. They wont ever accept Arab League soldiers manning a DMZ. They will refuse to hand back parts of the West Bank and Golan Heights that they have occupied "For Security".
That means the only viable solution is a Single State. They should rehome the refugees, return them to their land, and get over it. Deal with Hamas as the internal matter it is.
I'm sorry but that's insane. Did you not hear about what happened on October 7? And the reaction on the palestinian street? If Israel would do as you suggest then the world would find out what real genocide is.
A good solution that should satisfy everyone would be to offer a couple million palestinians a new life in any of the dozen arab states that exist and are much bigger then israel. They will get enough money to set themselves up and a pathway to citizenship in their adopted country. In short treating them like every other refugee in history, just much better. I've done the calculations, if 2 million palestinian get offered 50k dollars each, including children plus whatever they can get for selling their house this scheme would cost $100 billion dollars, which actually kind of makes sense seeing how much this war is costing. It might cost something in that ballpark to rebuild gaza anyway. You can call that whatever you want, but i'd say that is the path to an optimal outcome for all sides. (actually i like that idea so much i think it deserves the Nobel prizes in the peace and economic categories.)
Or you can get hung up about ethnic cleansing and gaza stays a hellhole for the next 20 years and increasingly overpopulated.
A financial resolution to complete Israeli ethnic cleansing is unlikely.
https://unwatch.org/un-condemns-israel-17-times-6-on-rest-of...
But for me, this says more about the nature of the UN than that of Israel.
regarding the number of condemnations: the un is directly involved in gaza, and has been for 70 years. At the same time, the US has blocked any binding resolution in the security council.
At the same time Israel is supposed to be the only democracy in the middle east, and thus subscribe totl the values that funded the UN. That makes it's transgressions feel even worse to many - myself included.
Yossi Cohen the director at Mossad used the photo of the ICC judge’s husband to threaten her not to rule aginst Israel.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/israel...
Her successor Karim Khan has also reported threats were made. He was later implicated in a sex scandal [2]. It would not surprise me if this was a Mossad sting operation.
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240528-israels-mossad-ch... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgeg738rvdeo
Edit: as the sibling comment states, the Americans have put in place sanctions against members of the HR council, along members of the ICC.
Inb4 whining that it's just the American government being slavishly loyal to the Zionist cause and the Zionist government of Israel has nothing at all to do with this. I swear to god if I get any response like this I will literally go blind from my eyeballs doing full 360s in my skull.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trump-administrat...
Good thing Zionism was invented exactly to counter that.
It is common for a minority of people to say similarly wild things about the US, Russia, China, and so on.
For example, I never saw an opinion that thinks that Russia control the media or world finance, while the above is attributed to jews since before nazis.
In the above example, it is very common for people to have a paranoid obsession with looking for Jews/Israel as an explanation for any news, and that is also a centuries old pastime
I think Israel realizes they're on borrowed time, and that's why they've adopted such an overtly aggressive strategy of getting what they want now, making their strategic goals a fait accompli while still receiving protection from America. With America out of the picture, Israel goes the way of Rhodesia.
When you say "Going by the way of Rhodesia" do you mean Israelis will just scatter away, the remaining ones will be under constant threat of violence?
BTW, Israel going the way of Rhodesia is unavoidable. Depending on how things go, it might happen in a few years, or twenty years, but as surely as baby boomers all eventually die, so too will Israel die.
255. The Commission concludes that the State of Israel bears responsibility for the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In short: Two wrongs do not make a right.
It is also worth noting that you are not portraying the matter fairly. You are transposing certain radical elements, i.e. those who actively defend Hamas, on to people who simply oppose the ethnic cleansing and genocide being perpetrated by Israel. I don't support Hamas, and I also don't support Israel.
Furthermore, you falsely assume that people are generally ignoring the evil actions perpetrated by Hamas, which is not the case. It is a false dichotomy to present the issue as supporting either Israel or Hamas. Hamas undeniably has engaged in terrorism, but that has no bearing on whether or not Israel is acting properly in response. The fact of the matter is that Israel hasn't merely been attacking Hamas targets that happen to also have civilians present, but rather that Israel is going beyond that to willfully engage in a near-indiscriminate extermination campaign against unjustifiable targets.
“The fact of the matter is that Israel hasn't merely been attacking Hamas targets that happen to also have civilians present, but rather that Israel is going beyond that to willfully engage in a near-indiscriminate extermination campaign against unjustifiable targets.”
Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties. It also drains the word genocide of meaning. The Holocaust was genocide, the systematic extermination of Jews for existing. That is not what Israel is doing to Palestinians.
Israel does not merely target Hamas with incidental civilian deaths, they have been documented actively targeting civilians. This has been indisputably demonstrated at this point. Early on I was much more skeptical since it's similarly indisputable that Hamas does engage in terroristic behavior, but as time has gone on we've had report after report confirming that Israel isn't merely targeting Hamas.
> The moral difference is intent.
Hamas intends to eliminate Israel, Israel intends to eliminate Hamas (justifiable) and exterminate the Palestinians (unjustifiable) to continue their long-running expansion operation and further their grip on the region at the expense of the other native populations.
> Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties.
1. I've already explicitly acknowledged the distinction between attacking Hamas, inadvertently harming civilians in the process, and the active slaying of the civilian population which is taking place. The former is regrettable but unavoidable, the latter is evil and it is what is also taking place.
2. I intentionally said "near-indiscriminate" rather than just "indiscriminate" for a reason. Unlike many people, yourself included, I don't view this conflict as a completely black-and-white matter. Israel is instrumentalizing their legitimate efforts in order to implement a wider effort to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
The crux of genocide is intent. Hamas openly declares its intent to erase Israel. Israel declares its intent to eliminate Hamas. If Israel’s goal was exterminating Palestinians, explain why it has repeatedly supported two-state proposals that Palestinian leadership rejected. Explain why over 20 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab, voting in elections, serving in parliament, even sitting on the Supreme Court. That reality is incompatible with a state bent on extermination.
Your “near-indiscriminate” phrasing is just a rhetorical trick. If you admit it is not indiscriminate, then you acknowledge Israel is targeting Hamas, not carrying out genocide. Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not the same thing as a systematic plan to wipe out a people.
Israel drops leaflets, issues warnings, and opens corridors. Hamas embeds in schools, hospitals, and residential blocks. That doesn’t absolve Israel of responsibility when civilians die, but it does show intent matters.
It said that Israel has committed four acts of genocide:
Killing members of the group: Palestinians were killed in large numbers through direct attacks on civilians, protected persons, and vital civilian infrastructure, as well as by the deliberate creation of conditions that led to death.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm: Palestinians suffered torture, rape, sexual assault, forced displacement, and severe mistreatment in detention, alongside widespread attacks on civilians and the environment.
Inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group: Israel deliberately imposed inhumane living conditions in Gaza, including destruction of essential infrastructure, denial of medical care, forced displacement, blocking of food, water, fuel, and electricity, reproductive violence, and starvation as a method of warfare. Children were found to be particularly targeted.
Preventing births within the group: The attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic destroyed thousands of embryos, sperm samples, and eggs. Experts told the commission this would prevent thousands of Palestinian children from ever being born."
Same energy.
"We could have killed all the Jews in Germany yesterday, but we did not do it. The demonstrations in Franconia were, in general, disciplined, clear, and farsighted."
- Julius Streicher, in a speech the day after Kristallnacht.
"The behavior of the Führer and the Reich in these days of continuous Polish and English provocations were remarkable. No other nation would have been as patient. It would have done what the Führer finally did on 1 September much earlier."Relevant Nazi propaganda, as they engaged in similar atrocity justification & denial.
> assassinate my character
Irony.
I find it funny that you have to lie so much. They did, it's easy to find. My father is from a Christian orphanage in east Jerusalem. My grandmother hosted sisters and priests from Israel who worked in schools, hospice and orphanage all over the two countries. UN school programs there had a lot of issues, but being religious (Hamas was a religious group before being a terrorist one) or close to Hamas wasn't one (having no heating in schools during winter and having to sometime amputate toes from 10 year old was probably the biggest issue that I remember).
and first UN general assembly resolution condemning hamas attack is the one from the past week that speaks about recognition of palestinian state.
unless you can find different one
> Condemning all acts of violence aimed at Palestinian and Israeli civilians, including all acts of terrorism and indiscriminate attacks, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction
https://docs.un.org/en/A/ES-10/L.25
The UN has been condemning the Hamas terrorist attacks from the start.
i wouldn't expect UN to care about it.
If the resolution was going to mention Hamas, it would also have to mention the IDF. The wording was deliberate for that reason.
This is the normal speed in which the UN operates. Note that the UN Secretary General condemned Hamas with name hours after the terrorist attacks. Also note that leaving out the name of Hamas in both the Security Council resolution, and in the General Assembly resolution was on purpose as if you named one human rights violator in your condemnation, you would also have to name the other, and the draft authors thought it was likelier to pass without naming the perpetrators. The security council resolution was never going to pass because of USA complicity in the genocide, but in case of the General Assembly, they were correct. The October resolution passed, but not by as wide a margin as the later ones, e.g. if every absentee would have voted against, the resolution would have failed to get the required 2/3rds majority to pass.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
here is nice quote [0] : "for the past two years theHamas leadership had been talking about implementing "the last promise" (alwaed al'akhir) – a divine promise regarding the end of days, when all human beings will accept Islam. Sinwar and his circle ascribed an extreme and literal meaning to the notion of "the promise, " a belief that pervaded all their messages: in speeches, sermons, lectures in schools and universities. The cardinal theme was the implementation of the last promise, which included the forced conversion of all heretics to Islam, or their killing."
everything that followed would be eventually known as largest brainwashing by mainstream and social media.
[0] https://judaic.arizona.edu/sites/judaic.arizona.edu/files/20...
https://www.impact-se.org/about-us/impact-se-board-members/
For an organization ostensibly concerned with education to violence everywhere, that's a LOT of board members with direct connections to Israel.
I also think it's common sense that if an occupying force deliberately ensures your living conditions become ever worse, shoots your friends and family to death for throwing stones and eventually obliterates entire families, that you don't exactly need textbooks to develop hatred.
As for "from the Nile to the Euphrates", just ask Daniella Weiss: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article-ma...
(i'll remind that those are books that are taught by UN agency)
the atlantic article from 1961 about unrwa camps showing that they were taught back than liberation of entire area by force and destruction of israel https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1961/10/208-4/132...
it's almost like if population is educated for violence for 50 years, it will behave violently and it will result in counter action from "occupying force"
on the other side, Israeli population is been subjected to palestinian violence for extended period. Pretty much everybody was either target of it or lost somebody to it.
Lets see what do we have in Israeli schoolbooks: https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/Arabs-and-Pales...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-09-04/ty-article-op...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-08-09/ty-article-ma...
but kudos on shifting goal posts.
The Israelis live in the West Bank. The IDF is there to protect them. There is no violence whatsoever from the settlers. It's pure propaganda. There were a few rare times of some violence, but it's nothing compared to what the Palestinians do. Last week, two Palestinians crossed the border and murdered 6 people and 20+ injured on a bus shooting in Jerusalem. They even kill each other.
Each time the IDF comes into Palestinians "cities" to catch terrorists, they throw rocks on them.
The UN reported that, in the West Bank, Palestinians killed 6 Israeli settlers and 16 soldiers, while Israelis killed 719 Palestinians, from October 7, 2023, to October 7, 2024" https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-updat...
International journalists can't access Gaza, but they have witnessed first hand settler violence. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewy88jle0eo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0pHcC0HMiQ
Can't find it on the source you provided. The source you provided also justifies terrorists cries about their home being destroyed. It's interesting from where they get these numbers, from Palestinians?
What authority, other than the local government, would you be more comfortable with providing those numbers?
about year ago PA tried to remove Hamas and other charity organizations for Jenin and other cities (that it typically can't entered) but failed and asked Israel to intervene what Israel did.
So you have interesting situation, when Palestinian authority asks Israel to kill palestinians and than Israel is blamed for killing palestinians.
Yeah we get it, all Arabs are liars. Anyone who has sympathy for them is a liar. The Sde Teiman video is a fake and also the soldiers in it are all heroes. Israel has the most moral army in the world. IDF soldiers never post TikToks of themselves committing war crimes and laughing about it. It's not as if a person could spend 5 seconds online and find video evidence of these atrocities.
TikTok is the most propagned platform currently. Not only about Gaza, but about everything. In the mean time, all the injured/starved citizens that were pictured and put on news papers were all a lie. I can also tell you I see many, many videos of sustained shops, rich food, candies and whatever first-world country has in Gaza. Give me one video please.
Unless you'd prefer to trust the word of an Israeli blogger over the childs doctors (because of their ethnicity).
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/05/nx-s1-5488798/gaza-baby-starv...
Where is your evidence to back any of your opinions?
Since October 7th, that is at least 60x.
Of course it stems from the anti-Israeli bias of its members: a single Jewish state against 57 Muslim states.
Very blatant disinformation from a top UN official (leader of OCHA), no retraction or apology, and no consequences.
In contrast, the number of deaths from both Israeli and Palestinian sides in the same time period was several hundreds.
I would like to add, I don't think this topic is appropriate for Hacker News.
-------------------
Brett McGurk would push back against the complaints, invoking his stint overseeing the siege of Mosul during the Obama administration, as the U.S. attempted to drive ISIS from northern Iraq: We flattened the city. There’s nothing left. What standard are you holding these Israelis to?
It was an argument bolstered by a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
When State Department officials chastised them over the mounting civilian deaths, Israeli officials liked to make the very same point. Herzl Halevi, the IDF chief of staff, brought up his own education at an American war college. He recalled asking a U.S. general how many civilian deaths would be acceptable in pursuit of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the jihadist leader of the anti-American insurgency in Iraq. The general replied, I don’t even understand the question. As Halevi now explained to the U.S. diplomats, Everything we do, we learned at your colleges.
-------------------------
in other words Israel using same approach as NATO armies. And if any of NATO armies will be in same situation, the outcome will be same.
It's not relevant what other countries did, why israel fights, where they got their weapon or training or ideas. It's only about how israel handles day to day operations.
I'd be happy to read reports about wether the US commited a genocide. And I don't want to read comparison with other countries in such reports.
and according to US diplomates israel handles day to day operations in same way as any western army will handle it, as it uses same procedures and protocols.
It's Israel engaging in a genocide pretending to fight a terror group.
Second word is antisemitism, again conflating what the Israeli government is doing with all Jews. A deliberate conflation to justify the unjustifiable, absolutely abhorrent. This is what is making the world less safe for Jews and it's being done on purpose but Zionists.
[0] https://genocidescholars.org [1] https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
To become a member of IAGS the qualifications are:
Pay $30 in membership fees.
Until recently the membership lists were open.
They closed after people started to screenshot and share that a person who called himself Adolf Hitler was a member there.
For anyone who has studied genocide to any degree it is clear that this doesn't match anything that has previously been classified as a genocide.
But more importantly, unlike all actual genocides, in this conflict it is the victim [1] population that started it and have all the keys to stop it.
[1]: victim in the same way as the nazi German population was victim in 1944 and 1945, they were suffering most even if they were the ones to start it. Oh, and unlike the nazi Germans, Gazans can probably still stop this by the end of the week if they want to.
I don't believe that the charges in the report require success either way, but it would help with your statistics.
But thats not the case here. Israel herded these people into this open air prison, removing them from and then settling their land. And kept them bottled up next to their settlements.
The only moral way to approach this situation would be for it to have never developed in the first place. Failing that, you would work to undo it. Heck, as you return every single refugee to their land, you can process them to see if they are a hamas fighter and jail them.
This is the truth of the matter. As Israel uses force to contain Gazans, they are effectively their government. They cant have Electricity, or Internet without Israeli approval. They cant pass border checkpoints without Israeli approval. The Israeli military frequently raids them. They do get black vanned and sent to Israeli prisons all the time. They are defacto Israeli subjects.
Therefore, this isnt a matter of warfare, this is a matter of policing. A civilian response would be best. There is no second country, and the people who benefit most from pretending there is a pseudo state in Gaza, are the Israelis, who use it to justify asymmetric warfare.
In case you are asking in good faith—and following the HN guidelines—I suggest you abandon this question and consider that maybe this is the wrong question to ask given the situation. If that is hard, then I ask you to consider that indigenous resistance against settler colonial violence has been a pretext for countless colonial oppression in the past, including many genocides.
This isn't the first time I've seem this 'you aren't in good faith' response on this topic, and is partly why again, HN just isn't a place where a real discussion can be had on this subject.
Otherwise you are right, I have accused others of being in bad faith on this topic, however when I do so, I tend to do it after many more interactions than what I have had with my parent above.
Despite, you know, literally creating it.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-hampering-entry-of...
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/07/01/i...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/22/gaza-i...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/7/israel-takes-control...
Even before this they had effective control of all goods moving through since 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factor...
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/thirst-weapo... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1w0l3q4zd0o
Other folks are free to Google the answers to these questions.
Since '93, the range allowed for Palestinian fishing boats has been reduced from 20 to 3 nautical miles by Israeli naval vessels. Because primarily only young fish are found that close to the shore, and because constant damage to infrastructure means untreated wastewater is being dumped close by, it's a pretty bleak picture.
More info on that particular attack: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15npnzpd08o
Crying genocide after such an attack when your enemy retaliates and retaliates very harshly in the context of middle eastern politics will never be reasonable. Hamas is free to surrender and everything would stop tomorrow.
I quoted from the report, you can make up your mind yourself. But you already did anyway.
Pillay is from the Apartheid crew, that just ignores a side of this conflict. A side that is very much not tolerant of everyone else. Bad and unconvincing report.
Israel is quite literally built on top of the ruins of Palestinian villages. The zionist project has always required an ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, because the project's goal is to build an ethnostate. This is just culminating in the current genocide.
The entire region was historically Jewish. As a simple example, consider the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. It is literally built on the ruins of a Jewish temple from BC times. That is long before any Arabs lived in the area, and long before Islam was invented.
There’s also no such thing as a “Palestinian village” because there is no such identity as Palestinian in truth. There’s just Islamic Arabs who tried to take over this land and claim it is their homeland when their homeland is really elsewhere.
> It has resisted any diplomatic route to a two-state solution
There were at least 5 different offers for a two-state solution historically. The people calling themselves “Palestinian” rejected every one of those. The real reason that can be deduced from this, is that they just don’t want a Jewish state to exist anywhere in any capacity.
You're denying Palestinians their nationhood even though Palestinians have had a national identity for longer than Israel has existed. Just to humour you, Palestine has multiple world famous national symbols, like the Jaffa orange, the keffiyeh, and the Dabke. All older than Zionist plans to take over the region.
The Palestinians haven't moved to Palestine recently, they've mostly been moved _out_ of Palestine, or moved into Gaza by Israel from elsewhere in their homeland. People whose families have lived in Palestine for generations are denied their right of return by Israel, even though this was rules a condition in UN resolution 194. Why would we even be talking about a right to return if Palestine isn't their homeland? The people whose homelands are elsewhere are the Israeli settlers.
I will agree that the region was jewish thousands of years ago. Nobody alive today is reaponsible for that, and the Palestinians are also descendants of the jewish people who lives there at the time. The Nakba happened in 1948, and the state of Israel that was founded on the back of those crimes still exists and is still responsible. Just as an example, Tel Aviv university is built on the rujns of the village of Sheikh Munis, and some of its dorms are built on the village's graveyard (source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-tau-can-build-dorms...). This is acceptable to Israeli society because they view Palestinians as subhumans.
What is happening is so incredibly obvious to anyone with a brain who has at least a speck of humanity in them. Which is why it is so devastatingly horrifying that some people are cheering Israel on as it wipes out an indigenous population, and when our political system is doing absolutely nothing to stop them.
There is a lot of fiction in your post and I am not surprised that you have a problem with the existence of Israel.
A friend of mine is in the Red Cross staff, they had more than 20 casualties since 2021 in Palestine. Their staff was literally shot at because they were doctors.
It's sickening.
You are welcome to believe what you want to believe but plenty of people throughout History believed something as strongly and self righteously as you do and turned out dead wrong. To think you are immune to that and suggest that no voice to the contrary should be allowed is ridiculous.
The fact that innocent people are purposefully being killed in Gaza is just that - a fact.
What you can do is argue that that's okay. What you CAN'T do is argue that that isn't happening.
For example, it is a fact that the US slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You can argue it was justified and the lesser of two evil - people do it all the time. What you CAN'T argue is that hundreds of thousands of innocent people werent slaughtered. They were, it just happened.
I'm sorry, you just have to live with that and live with whatever resulting beliefs you may have.
If you want to end the war, then pressure Hamas to return the hostages. Don't pressure Israel to bow to terrorist demands.
I'm wondering if you'd apply the same standard on the flip side? Per Hamas, they are engaged in a war with Israel, so by your standard they are justified in their rocket attacks killing Israeli civilians who have nothing to do with the war?
There are a LOT of videos from Gaza when Israel notified civilians to leave a building before it destroys it. That seems contrary to the goal of killing civilians.
The other obvious thing is - since Israel is already totally smeared as a genocider (eg this story) it could be argued that it can do whatever it wants and suffer no further PR damage. So to the extent that it still shows restraint - it's either because they don't want to kill civilians or because they are still playing to an audience with a discerning moral compass internationally.
I'll help you with that. It's not the side that would regularly take Gazan children into Israel for medical treatment before the Gazans started a war against Israeli children. Or do Israeli children mean nothing? Because I personally know two women whose children were burned to death on October 7th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_health_workers_in_t...
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/20/nx-s1-5370617/israeli-probe-k...
The one shooting doctors.
What happened on October 7 has been a tragedy. 38 children died that day, and you know two of the mothers. I can't even relate with their suffering, in no way I can understand their pain like you do.
But I don't know either any mothers of the 32'000 killed and wounded on the other side.
"One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this."
I can never understand your pain but for me this reads like bloodlust coming from revenge. That is a path that will never lead to an end of bloodshed.
Given the actions of the Netanyahu government continuously siding with actions prolonging the genocide despite whatever action Hamas takes what do you propose?
What do you think of the colonialists/settlers/occupiers on the West Bank stealing Palestinian land and forcing people from their homes?
Nobody's ever denied that October 7th was a tragedy and that similar things happened. Not even once.
Don't get your point besides "if some of us suffered, it's fine to inflict 1000x the suffering on anybody associated, related or even just in proximity of those who caused us the suffering".
> It's not reckoning
I've never seen a war in which only one side has an army, and the other one loses almost exclusively civilians.
And if you’re about to tell me it isn’t a war against civilians, it should be easily provable by IDF videos of firefights with Hamas on a daily basis since October 8th 2023. However the videos I have seen have targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure.
I mean I don't think anyone will argue it's good but "crimes against humanity" is certainly a massive exaggeration.
Even an increasing number of Israelis call this for what it is: ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Hamas is a bunch of evil people. That doesn't justify descending to their level of butchery to exterminate them, especially not when you are so much more efficient at that butchery.
> Israel has killed something like 30-40x the number of civilians in the same timeframe.
The one doing it
> They've just been denied the chance.
Perhaps. Perhaps if they somehow had the time, means and power to do it, they would have killed as many people on the other side, although this is high speculative as the past decades would have played out very differently anyway.
I'm not sure where you're going with that though. Nobody claims Hamas are kind and gently guys.
No it wouldn't be, you're just spewing lazy Zionist propaganda.
"Jewish-Zionist Terrorism and the establishment of Israel" - https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
"Release of civilian hostages held in Gaza and arbitrarily detained [de facto hostages] Palestinians must be immediate and not hinge on ceasefire negotiations" - https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/02/release-of-ci...
"Why Does Israel Have So Many Palestinians in Detention [de facto hostages] and Available to Swap?" https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/29/why-does-israel-have-so-...
"Israeli use of human shields in Gaza was systematic, soldiers and former detainees tell the AP" - https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-arm...
"The Israeli army’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields has been documented on a large scale" - https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6390/The-Israeli-army%...
"The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, soldier and former detainees say - https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h...
"A Brief History of Israel's Use of Human Shields
This is a brief history of how the Zionist community in Palestine, and then the state of Israel, used its own civilians as shields in its conquest of the land. Zionist leaders realized early on that Zionism was a civilian and a military enterprise. In 1919, the first Zionist militia, HaShomer (which evolved into the Haganah, which evolved into the Israeli army) declared “the need to begin widespread settlement close to the existing boundary lines for the purpose of defending the country.” The idea was to establish new Zionist colonies in the border areas. The idea was to put civilians in harm’s way. But the problem ran much deeper. Zionist fighters soon realized they would need to embed themselves in civilian communities to establish a self-sustaining recruitment base and fund militia operations. The latter was achieved through combining agricultural and military training in civilian settlements. The financial support for military training was attained through the agricultural output of the settlement. By 1936, Jewish Agency Executive Committee Chairman, David Ben-Gurion, came to agree with HaShomer’s idea to establish settlements in border areas. HaShomer “once had a good idea,” he said, “creating … settlements along the country's borders. It appears necessary to establish settlements on every mountaintop in Palestine with crucial strategic importance.” The point became all the more obvious during the 1948 War. In April 1948, Ben Gurion told his government: “We must establish a string of settlements of a new type, different from the regular ones, that are not based on the sacred writ of the military academy but rather, constitute mixed battalions of settlers and warriors, farmers and fighters.” For Ben-Gurion, this was the only path to victory. In the aftermath of the War, Ben Gurion outlined the roadmap for how Israel should continue to settle the country: “Our conquest in the Negev and the Galilee will not be sustainable unless we quickly populate these portions of the country…[with]...the establishment of a long line of settlements on the frontier.” And so, in the 1950s, Israel built civilian centers in border areas to serve as a first line of military defense. 26 new settlements were established along the Lebanese border, the Jordan river and the Gilboa foothills; 13 on the eastern border, 8 in the Jerusalem corridor and 25 on the southern front. In total, some 108 such militant civilian settlements were built in Israel after 1948, including towns like Nahal Oz, short for Nahlayim Mul Aza, “Nahal soldiers across from Gaza,” which tragically ended up serving the purpose for which it was built. The point was to put Israeli civilians on the front lines as human shields.
Agricultural work conducted under guard in Moshav Nitzanei Oz (“buds of strength”) in 1954. Founded in 1951 as a Nahal settlement, the moshav was located on the Jordanian border and the outskirts of Tulkarem source (p.72) Initially, the status of the citizens in the border towns was “identical to reserve soldiers,” according to Israeli historian Yoav Gelber. These “civil” communities were even organized in companies and platoons and integrated into the Israeli military’s command and control hierarchy. The Israeli military trained and equipped these civilians in classic civilian stuff like anti-tank and light arms instruction. After the 1967 War, Israel took a similar approach in the newly conquered territories. In July 1970, Israel confiscated land in Hebron by military order, ostensibly for “security purposes.” The first buildings on it would be falsely presented as a military facility, according to Israeli cabinet meeting notes. Shortly thereafter, Israel built 250 civilian housing units in Kiryat Arba within the perimeter of the area specified for the military unit’s use. Similarly, in 1971, Israel declared Palestinian village of Aqraba a military training zone. By 1975, the Jewish settlement of Gitit was established on its ruins. The idea in the 1970s was to enmesh Israel’s civilian and military presence in Palestine. Then Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres called for creating a strip of civilian settlements slicing across the West Bank “for defensive purposes” and another strip near Jerusalem to break the occupied territory into fragments. He added, “there’s a line of army bases in Samaria…I’d put a small civilian settlement next to each one.” By 1980, the World Zionist Organization had developed a “Master Plan” for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The plan called for settling the land between and among the Arab population to make it “hard for Palestinians to create territorial contiguity and political unity.” Civilian settlement in the service of military conquest! “From my perspective,” Avigdor Lierman said in 2017, “it's clear that the settlements in Judea and Samaria and those here in the area of Jericho and the Dead Sea are the State of Israel’s true defensive wall.” Israel’s military headquarters are located in the Tel Aviv city center, a few hundred meters from a large high school. All the major bus lines pass right by. Tel Aviv’s main hospital -- the Ichilov Hospital -- is just to the north and is connected to the base by emergency tunnels. The Israeli army radio station is located in a residential apartment building & its antennas are on the roof of that residential building. Then there’s Israel’s militant settlers, who often carry out pogroms and acts of violence against Palestinians together with the Israeli military. What’s more, the Israeli military has established settler militias, known as “territorial defense units,” which are civilian groups armed and trained by the army. All of this makes Israel’s claim that “Hamas uses human shields” deeply cynical. In its campaign of mass murder in Gaza, +972 reported Israel prefers to strike Hamas fighters in their homes, together with their families, so long as no more than 20 civilians are killed per strike (for higher level commanders, 300 civilians massacred is considered acceptable).
Imagine if Hamas adopted this military doctrine. What percentage of Israeli households would be legitimate targets? How many Israeli households have an active-duty soldier or a reservist, or live within 100 feet of a household with a soldier or a reservist, and thus would equally be a target given Israel’s use of dumb bombs? [Note: Half the bombs Israel drops on Gaza are dumb bombs that often land 100 feet away from their target]. I’d venture to guess the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israeli civilians would be targets. Of course, targeting civilians is always a war crime, even if they are being used as human shields. That’s true no matter who is doing the targeting. Zionist leaders have embraced the use of Zionist, Jewish and Israeli human shields for more than a century. It’s time for this practice to end." - Zachary Foster, jewish historian, founder of palestinenexus.com, [https://palestine.beehiiv.com/p/brief-history-israels-use-is...]
The most serious genocide we're all aware of began, indeed, with a terrorist incident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht) -- a jewish boy assassinated a german diplomat.
This comment also conflates Hamas with the civilian population of gaza. The genocide isnt against Hamas -- we all regard israel's killing of enemy military combtants as not included in this crime.
Here's an interview with a senior UNICEF worker about israel's actions against the civilian population : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsAo2j6aih0
This is not about israel incidentally hitting civilians. It's about the deliberate policy of mass starvation, withholding of medical supplies (incubators, pain killers, the lot), and the placing of the only "allowed" aid-distribution centres (4 out of a previous 400) in the middle of active war zones -- so that to recieve any aid at all, you have to go through active fire.
This has nothing to do with israel's actions against Hamas
You're assuming a determinism here following from the narrow tribal logic of the situation, but you have King Kong with his thumb on the scale.
Huh? Israel is literally founded upon "Jewish-Zionist Terrorism" as in "Jewish-Zionist Terrorism And The Establishment Of Israel" - https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
Israel has always been allowed to commit any crime it wants "with no immediate punishment", no sanctions, but maybe a few mean words. Sometimes certain governments would impose a symbolic sanctions on specific individual lunatic settlers as a form of "see we did some thing", but otherwise Israel's history is the history of impunity.
'The legal term “genocide” refers to certain acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. ' [1]
Israel is functionally commiting genocide, after being an apartheid state for decades. Arguably their goal is ethnic cleansing, and mass murder is a means to that end.
[1] https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genoci...
If I see your house, miles from any military installation, and I destroy it in order to kill you, and I do that over and over and over, that is genocide.
In both cases, the house is destroyed. In one case, your life is saved.
About 70 million people were killed in WW2, as of the present day about 1 million have died in the war Russia is waging against Ukraine and about 70k people have died in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. The horrors are most certainly real. But WW3 this era is most certainly not, that's thankfully off by an order of magnitude.
We could say that Ukraine is the current Poland.
I look at European leaders and they don't seem to remember it any better.
I don't see why you think that. That didn't work for Hitler, Göring, and the countless numbers of WW1 veterans in the SA and SS hungry for another try.
I am sure i will be flagged despite completely agreeing with the UN here but if any real change is to happen, minds must be changed which mass flagging does nothing to help. It only further entrenches people. But hey, at least it feels good right? Righteous and all that.
For those who disagree with the UN here, id be happy to change your mind. The us should not be involved in any of this.
The UN is the only international democratic institution that - even with its many imperfections - prevents the world to fall into complete anarchy. It's quite telling that it gets ignored since so many years by the country that elevates itself as the world defender of democracy, the US.
The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba. Every year the outcome of the vote, which has always resulted in a great majority demanding the immediate end of the embargo, has been ignored by the US, resulting in millions of Cubans facing extreme economic consequences since many decades. The last time every country except Israel and US voted for ending the embargo (I might be wrong, maybe a single African state abstained).
In all of this, the only seed of joy I see, was seeing the Cubans a couple of years ago, after decades and decades of seeing their economy strangled by the most powerful country on Earth, roll out their own Covid vaccine just at the same time of those of big Pharma - a vaccine that resulted excellent, effective, and cheap. Hats off for the Cubans. Hope to see some other seed like this also in the Palestinians.
It's not been ignored the purpose of the UN is for largely irrelevant countries to petition the world powers to maybe consider doing something. The UN has been so successful because it has no real power over players like the USA.
> The UN has voted for decades for ending the embargo towards Cuba.
Ok? I mean the purpose of the UN is for people to suggest stuff to players like the USA not for the USA to actually do what the UN votes for.
The UN serves as a valuable diplomatic forum but let's not pretend that is does have or should have any real power or authority.
People seem to have this concept that there is some supra national legal system, or even moral system that can hold a higher truth than what powerful countries want, but there isn't. When it comes to geopolitics, the biggest and most powerful sets the rules and lives by them (or not). The USA has zero motivation to do something the UN wants it to do, if it doesn't itself want to do it. No one is going to hold it to account.
Ultimately - whoever controls the violence can set the rules. For the last 80 years that's been the US. Maybe that is changing, but not quite yet.
The UN isn't an international democratic institution. For the last 20-30 years it's been a powerless theatre. And it didn't have much power before then either. Because ultimately, whoever has the most nukes and the biggest army rules the world.
Can you blame them? The same countries facilitating this genocide have been telling everyone they uphold principles of human rights and democracy, and a "rules based international order*, and that they oppose genocide. Only now are enough horrors breaking through in such a surreal way that people are forced to notice the contradictions.
Ultimately, a lot of the wealth of the West comes from core countries siphoning wealth from the periphery and propping up psueodo governments to place their thumbs on the scale of world politics. Exhibit A: Israel.
Reality: The report was written by a 3 person UNHRC commission, which itself is seated by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, and Qatar.
Your framing that "3 people from Ethiopia/Congo/Sudan/Qatar wrote the report" is both incorrect and deeply racist.
Edit: and to make it clear, the report was authored by the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel" which is made up of the following three members:
- Ms. Navanethem Pillay (South Africa)
- Mr. Miloon Kothari (India)
- Mr. Chris Sidoti (Australia)
You can read more about the commission here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index
I await the ICJ ruling, as I regard that institution as reasonably impartial.
1. reduces the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory, or 2. continues, as it is currently doing, to increase the volume and density of violence being acted on that territory
Is there a different answer, should this other organization’s opinion affirm or refute genocide?
I would really like to understand the based & logical reasoning that you use to arrive at this position.
If you look at comparable situations throughout history - urban warfare - Gaza doesn't really stand out as an outlier. It is tragic that urban warfare is usually so deadly, but singling out Gaza as a uniquely evil instance just doesn't seem to have any basis in the statistics.
The crime of Genocide is unique - it isn't enough to establish what physically happened, nor to establish intent, but all those and cause-effect must be proven. The bar was, intentionally, placed extremely high, in order to emphasize the extraordinarily evil nature of this crime. It seems to me that the purely circumstantial evidence does not meet this bar of intent, let alone being able to establish cause-effect.
Lowering the bar in order to prosecute more acts would only serve to de-emphasize why the term genocide was coined to describe the most heinous of crimes. It is supposed to represent something almost unfathomable, something that could only be carried out with intent or else the acts would make no rational sense, not something that could happen out of negligence and lack of caution. I find it notable that many historical genocides were defined by acts that took place outside of the actual military engagements.
Unfortunately, the trend seems to be try to use this word to describe all war acts people consider unjustified. If people need another way to describe such war acts, that is a separate question.
Yeah me neither.
But I can accept there will be civilian casualties when fighting a war that will result in de-radicalization of a terrorist state and prevent decades to centuries of further violence.
Here's a question, what kind of defensive violence needs to be scheduled in advance and performed with clockwork regularity? The non-defensive, genocidal kind.
There is no amount of groups, no amount of evidence, no statistic that will get the supporters of Israel now to flip, that much is clear. They are only interested in denying. Facts to them are merely an inconvenience.
When you run cover for this action, in the future you will have to live with the fact that you defended and denied this genocide.
I'm sure horrible things happen there, also that Israel plays dirty, but the selectiveness of the outrage, and complete silence on similar situations, or for that matter, the United States foreign policy of the past century...
I honestly don't care what happens there. I've seen and read enough to know that the conflicts in the region are so ideological that trying to project any rationality on them is effectively moot.
How come so many Ukrainians were accepted into their neighbor countries when Russia invaded, and apparently none of the neighbors want to have anything to do with the Palestinians?
israel's existence and industry is in the interest of the global bourgeoise. "what to do" with the palestinians they displaced has lingered until they were boldened enough by their utter impunity to enact the measures they've taken. israel is the final "classically" imperial nation: to proceed in any manner which favors the palestinians remotely strips the modern colonial empire of its credulity in its own eternal existence.
hamas is an anti-colonial bourgeois movement, of which we've seen many. their are less reactionary elements within the palestinian resistance as well. this pattern has emerged many times in e.g. north africa, what's unique about palestine is that its anti-colonial war has persisted 60 years past the ends of the others.
colonialism is suffocation. it serves only the u.s., israel, etc., to see it as a tit for tat and shield your eyes from any news out of the entire region.
...and, your last sentence is unreal, to be honest. it's a genocide, and you're curious why no one would like to take the unfortunate undesirables at the receiver's end? are you so immune to ideology?
Towards that end I offer up unwatch.
> Agence France-Presse has described UN Watch as "a lobby group with strong ties to Israel" ... Primarily, UN Watch denounces what it views as anti-Israel sentiment at the UN and UN-sponsored events.
Here is Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch (https://x.com/HillelNeuer/status/1711844160804638980): “I just got off the phone with a third call with Prime Minister Netanyahu”
https://web.archive.org/web/20111222162658/https://www.googl...
I'd like to see a rebuttal from a government that isn't accused of genocide.
Like how Israel treats Palestinians?
There is no "yes, but" when genocide is taking place.
"Calling it antisemitism - it’s a trick we always use." Shulamit Aloni, former Israeli Minister
If I want to understand any position I would look for first sources. Say I want to understand why Russian invaded Ukraine, I would seek out Russian sources. When I try to understand the Palestinian position, I seek out Palestinian sources.
The beautiful thing about intellectual honesty and openness is that you don't have to agree with any position. You can expose yourself to things that deeply conflict with your personal values and walk away with a deeper understanding of why you value what you value, and how to refute ideas that you strongly disagree with.
To dismiss a source because it is Israeli ironically gives fuel to the antisemitism charge. You're saying that the very reason to dismiss it, to not even bother entertaining its arguments is because it is Israeli and no other reason. Beyond that, you are even arguing that any claims of prejudice can be dismissed outright on the basis of one thing that one Israeli Minster once said [allegedly].
That is the very definition of prejudice.
There are many examples of Israeli sources lying about the state of things, from the baseless claims against UNRWA to the unconscionable excuse of burying medics and the ambulances they were in, to avoid wild dogs eating them.
Israeli sources rarely offer evidence to refute the claims presented in this report, and a cry of antisemitism, as stated, conflates Judeism with Israeli nationality, hence these sources are worthless at best.
I note you've not denied the issues with claims of antisemitism which are important.
Receipts: https://unwatch.org/report-unrwas-terrorgram/
If that's not antisemitic, I'm not sure what would be in your mind.
But I think for you, you are able to dismiss it because the rest of the world choose to not see it.
I'm saying that a biased Israeli news source is less valid than the actions of dozens of countries, which decided to restart funding.
It is telling that UN votes for a ceasefire are only opposed by the US, Israel and a handful of client states. This is a genocide, and most countries seem to agree on that.
Second, you dismissed what you deemed to be Israeli sources as "lying about the state of things, from the baseless claims against UNRWA". I brought up evidence otherwise - specifically that their claims are not baseless. Dismiss _that_ as biased all you want, but its just links to social media posts from Hamas members. Members of Hamas that also work for UNRWA in some fashion.
We do agree that the US and Israel standing alone is telling. But we will disagree on what it means. For me it confirms just how morally bankrupt the United Nations is. I see no epistemological value in just conforming to the majority when I see clear evidence otherwise.
Conflation of Israelis and Jews and the false claim of antisemitism.
The lack of evidence of UNRWA-Hamas association, such that Israel's claims are deemed baseless by multiple countries and they restart funding. That is not a UN decision, it is by each country and serves as a good benchmark for baseless.
As to some posts to Hamas members, Israel have called reporters Hamas members simply for reporting with Hamas members, so as far as a few posts go, classification is the issue here, to the point where Reuters and other news agencies have stopped sending the IDF their locations, as the IDF label them Hamas supporters and deliberately target them. Actions are a much more clear signal. In Lebanon, the IDF saying there were Hamas tunnels under hospitals was debunked by numerous news organisations like the BBC, Sky etc. This is the IDF here misclassifying and outright lying, let alone an Internet site.
Lastly, given that both Trump and Netanyahu have openly and on TV advocated ethnic cleansing, and that these comments get next to zero blowback, the US and Israel appear to be the morally bankrupt ones. If an internet site takes precedence over open admission by presidents, multiple country's decisions, evidence presented from an acknowledged organisation (and confirmed from multiple sources), then I'd argue that there's something amiss here.
We agree it is an Israeli source.
All the unwatch site does is accuse Israel's critics of being antisemites. When you can't respond to the message, attack the messenger. Accuse them of being antisemitic and being funded by Hamas.
The Israelis have taken it to the point of farce!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/stop-antisem...
> Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
You imagine the future that suits your perspective and act like it's a fait accompli.
In reality, the PLO would have (and had been) quelling Hamas effectively. And then they were sitting at the negotiating table (after a rather ugly period). So Israel was facing awkward questions of "If Arafat is willing to negotiate, why aren't you?", so the Israeli far right locked in on the idea of "surreptitiously fund Hamas against the PLA/PLO".
Your imaginings count for nothing, because they're just your preconceived notion.
They are succeeding.
The solution to rich countries being divided on an the issue of an ongoing genocide is you know, not committing said genocide.
> This sounds to me like you are trying portray poorer countries as lesser worth because they had the guts of calling Israel out.
What does "poorer" have anything to do with it? Is that some tactic to garner sympathy?
So now the entire west, NATO and other US allies should with blinded conviction approve of the genocide?
This seems like you are afraid of isolation and the fallout of the ongoing genocide.
There’s cracks showing and you know when they open Israel will lose its privileged position.
The american equivalent would be to quote Bernie Sanders saying "America is fascist" and then saying, see? therefore the USA system of government is fascism, even Congress agrees!
Lets see if there is a pattern.
Roger Waters criticizes Israel, Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Tucker Carlson criticizes Israel, Tucker Carlson is an antisemite.
Edward Said criticizes Israel, Edward Said is an antisemite.
Even "legends" get called antisemites! [1]
Hannah Einbinder criticizes Israel, Hannah Einbinder is an antisemite? Hmmm.
According to Jerry Seinfeld, anyone who says "free palestine" is antisemitic.
Any website, or any person, that claims "antisemitism" has lost all credibility for me.
[1] https://moguldom.com/454177/silicon-valley-legend-paul-graha...
Roger Waters is an antisemite.
Do people who have known Roger Waters his entire life think he is an antisemite because of his obsessive criticism of Israel, or because of all the other anti Jewish things he has said and done AND his singular obsession with Israel?
* https://variety.com/2023/music/news/roger-waters-antisemitic...
>In the 2023 documentary The Dark Side of Roger Waters, the >saxophonist Norbert Stachel recounts Waters refusing to eat >vegetarian >dishes in Lebanon, calling them “Jew food”. When >the musician explained >that most of his relatives had been >killed in the Holocaust, the singer did >a crude and offensive >impersonation of a Polish peasant woman, and said, >“Oh, I can >help you feel like you’re meeting your long-lost relatives. I >can introduce you to your dead grandmother.” > >Tellingly, Stachel also claimed to overhear Waters telling a >girlfriend that Judaism was not a race, saying, “They’re >white European men that grow beards and they practise the >religion Judaism, but they’re no different than me; they have >no difference in their background or their history or their >culture or anything.”
* https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/rogers-waters-anti...
I know less about Said.
He did write the forward to Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. The book is framed as an attack on Jewish fundamentalism.
Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus at the University of British Colombia, writes: “He [Shahak] says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.[b] He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..." I did take the trouble to question my orthodox rabbi nephew to find what might be behind such tall tales. He had no clue. If orthodox Jews were actually taught such hateful things, surely someone would have heard. Whom is Dr. Shahak kidding?”
Edward Said wrote the foreward to the second edition, calling Shahak “one of the most remarkable individuals in the contemporary Middle East.” Said writes that the book is “nothing less than a concise history of classic and modern Judaism, insofar as these are relevant to the understanding of modern Israel.”
At best Said endorses antisemites.
Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a podcaster known for promoting Holocaust revisionism and making historically inaccurate claims about World War II. He labeled Winston Churchill as the "chief villain" of the conflict. They perpetuated downplayed Nazi atrocities.
Sure seems antisemitic.
Regarding antisemitism, it is unfortunately a two millennium old racist phenomenon, which shows itself in an obsession many persons had with Jews and their "influence on world politics". Behaviors include use of ritual scapegoating, where double standards are applied to the jews and then blame is shifted to them, culminating in ritual violence.
It's hard to delete 2000 years of western culture, so what you are seeing is mostly a rehash of this
This predated Israel by much and can be seen online for example by the unhealthy obsession with this conflict or even paranoid delusions considering Israel ("Israel killed Charlie Kirk cause I saw Nethanyahu respond to the murder" as can be seen in this thread)
In the above mentioned UN human right council you can see it in the fact 40% of decisions are about Israel while countries like Iran chair the committee. Or the fact there is a permanent clause (Article 7) meant to condemn Israel permanently, the only such country that had such a clause
That's why an organization that used death squads to mass-execute civilians in entire towns (as was done by the Einsatzgruppen) gets to blame the side that bombs military targets (exactly the tactic used against nazis) with genocide
Not sure if they died or just lost all their limbs.
Are we sure we are talking about the same child who got blown up? There is quite a few.
Yeah. It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes.[0]
you can look for yourself - its the same as the "its funded by lunatics" comment, just swapping which lunatics.
if they've got arguments, they arent putting them forward as what they consider the most important.
The report states on the first page "most likely pro-Hamas lobby groups in those countries", very conclusive indeed.
The supposedly pro Hamas groups: The Australian Friends of Palestine Association and Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, as well as the Free Palestine Melbourne and Palestinian Christians in Australia.
Just regular old "its antisemitism" to say that Israel shouldn't be killing so many civilians. Hasbara has become so bad its laughable that they think this is a website worth taking seriously, or it would be if they were using Hasbara to keep killing civilians.